Check The Expiration Date On Your Amenities

Olympic-Size Pool? Check

State of the Art Gym? Check

Car Detail Center? Check

Boy, prospects are going to love these things! Residents, not so much. Here's a little story that is all too common with apartment prospects and residents:
 

You have a brand-new shiny prospect walk in the door and boy are you relieved! Traffic has been slow, so you really take the time with the grand tour, showing off the big "closers" throughout the property. And your prospect eats it up, grinning as you move from the pool to the gym to the putting green. You've sold them and now they move in almost immediately. Fast forward 10 months and your former prospect, now resident, hasn't swam in the pool since she moved in, worked out only once after setting her New Year's resolution, and doesn't even golf at all! And now, she's put in her notice to vacate. But didn't she love the amenities and property?
 

And here's the kicker! Your soon-to-be former resident visits your rival community, "oohing" and "ahhing" as they show off their luxurious pool, top-notch gym, and car detail center. This is the same girl who didn't swim at all at your community and barely lifted a dumbbell, right? So what is going on??
 

Unfortunately, for most communities and most residents, the grand amenities that you sell to prospects have declining value and actually tend to "expire" as residents live in your community! But we really need to look at the supposed benefit our amenity offered to the prospect to begin with. Often, a move to a new home is seen as a fresh beginning, somewhat similar to the New Year's resolution phase. At this point, it's easy to see not the life they are living, but the life they want to live. It's a vision of their own perfect self. And your amenities fall directly into that category!
 

For example, people don't want to think of themselves as sloths sitting on the couch watching TV all day, but reality is that a good chunk of people tend to do that! But in their dream life, they are lounging by the pool, 20 pounds lighter (hence the gym), and have a better golf game (putting green), fancy car (detail center), or are more productive (business center).
 

But six months down the road, reality sets in. They have proof in their actions that they aren't living their dream life. They aren't getting up early to go to the gym or enjoying that new tan. They are living the life they always do. And since they are not living their dream life, your amenities now have no value.
 

But why would a competing property's amenities still have value? Well, think about that as if you would a new diet. Someone may have failed every other diet imaginable, but they haven't failed the watermelon-asparagus-tomato juice diet yet, so maybe that's the magic plan that will work! So the eternal optimism of achieving their dream life leads them to a different community even if it has similar amenities.
 

Does that change the way you view your community? Does it change your retention strategy? It should!

What do you all think?