Everyday, I get a phone call or an email from a company that has a problem that needs fixing. Now, as a consultant and educator in multifamily, this really shouldn't surprise me. But what IS surprising  is how many of the problems are 'self inflicted'.  Here's a quick overview of the three I hear on a regular basis.

FAILURE #1: Trying to beat the system on Craigslist. You know what I'm talking about here. The constant refreshing of ads by making 'small tweaks' so the ads are not exactly the same.  (But who are we kidding? The ads essentially ARE the same). The we've got the properties who are trying to use a variety of ISP addresses to 'fool' the system, etc. The list goes on and on. And then what happens? Craigslist busts them and blacklists them. And then my phone rings and everyone says the same thing: "We got blacklisted on Craigslist! What do we do?" And I ask the same question, "What were you doing that got you blacklisted?" And we go on from there, discussing how they were trying to get around the Terms of Service (TOS) and basically got caught. (Charity, I think this is a great opportunity for you to weigh in here on this particular failure.)

FAILURE #2: Running your property page as a profile page on Facebook instead of a "Fan Page".  This is a violation of the TOS on Facebook. There's no way around it; it's wrong. And you run the risk of losing your entire page - all of your links, videos, photos, comments, 'friends' and more. And sadly, you won't be able to get it back. It will be GONE and you will have no choice but to start over, hopefully as a fan page. 

Greater Washington, DC continues to rank as the country's healthiest really big apartment market. Demand for almost 2,600 units during 2009's 3rd quarter surpassed completions that totaled 2,120 units, so occupancy inched up a tenth of a percentage point between June and September to a rate of 94.1percent. That occupancy figure tops the national average by 2 full percentage points. Effective rents are being cut in the metro, but an annual decline of 1.4 percent during the year-ending fall 2009 looks quite a bit better than the country's typical loss of more than 4 percent.

There aren't any individual neighborhoods across metro Washington where apartment occupancy struggles are especially severe by national standards. Only Reston/Herndon and Prince George's County have occupancy a little below the 93 percent mark. Similarly, rent cuts by submarket tend to be pretty mild, though both Alexandria and Central Fairfax County have seen effective pricing come down by 4 percent or more over the past year.

Even with no real disaster zones in greater Washington, some neighborhoods obviously are performing better than others, and Loudoun County currently ranks at the very top of the list. Loudoun County's September 2009 occupancy rate stood at 96.1 percent, and effective rents over the past year proved basically flat (edging up 0.1 percent).

I'll never forget my favorite college professor at UNC Chapel Hill where I was an advertising major.  His name was Joe Bob and he was my advisor for my last 2 years as well as my instructor for numerous advertising classes.  He was an amazing teacher and had so much real life knowledge about the advertising industry to share.  There were so many things I learned from him, but there's one thing that I've carried with me all these years and I live by it whenever I tackle an advertising related task.  Joe Bob taught me the secret of the most successful advertising campaigns in history. 

The most successful, memorable campaigns are ones that take 2 totally unrelated items/thoughts/objects and combine them to make a lasting impression. 

Darned if he wasn't right!  Think about some of your favorite commercials or radio ads.  One of my favorites is the ETrade talking babies.  What in the world do talking babies and the stock market have in common?  Absolutely nothing!  That's the beauty of it and I'll always remember ETrade just because I love the little baby breaking out his rendition of "take....these broken wings..."  It never gets old!  Or how about the Geico Gheko.  Really, a lizard selling insurance?  But it works, doesn't it?!

We have recently made a few changes to the way we distribute the blogs through RSS, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.  The way the blogs are shown should not be affected, but what will be different is the inclusion of discussion posts!  We want discussion posts to be just as important and seen as the MFI blog posts, so now they shouldn't feel like second class citizens.

For those that keep track of MFI through these different mediums, what do you think of including the discussion posts?  Do they show up properly?  Does including discussion posts end up being "post overload"?  We'd love to get your feedback!

Globe Street announced today that Lance Armstrong is forming a commercial real estate investing company focused on central Texas markets. He has $100M to play with.

One of his partners, Lance Sallis, a 20-year real estate veteran, was previously managing director with Trammell Crow Co.'s Austin office. Here is what Sallis had to say about the commercial markets. Basically FULL SPEED AHEAD!

"Now's the right time," Sallis explains. "There's been a re-pricing of institutional quality commercial real estate assets, and all of this creates a huge buying opportunity for groups willing to buy, hold and reposition properties."

Olympic-Size Pool? Check

State of the Art Gym? Check

Car Detail Center? Check

Reputations...we all have one.  Our communities have one.  So what is yours?  Do you even know?  What do your residents, community neighbors and competitors really think of your community?  If you don't know, then it's time to figure it out!

 Reputation is huge in such a competitve industry.  The word around town can certainly sway a potential renter to one direction or another.  So how do you get them to sway your way?  First off, you need to find out what people really think of your community and get a really good handle on where you stand.  Here are some great ways you can do this...

• Create a resident survey.  Make it anonymous to get the most accurate results.  Encourage your residents to be honest about their likes and dislikes and give them an opportunity to offer suggestions for improvement.
• Create an exit survey and send it along with your deposit refunds when a resident moves out.  Again, ask for their likes, dislikes and suggestions.
• Browse the internet.  Look to sites like Apartment Ratings to see what people are saying about your community.  A quick Google search will lead you to sech reviews.
• Look into local websites like City-Data.com.  Do a forum search to see if there are any conversations started about your community.  If not, feel free to start one, but be careful not to set the tone for the responses.  Just a simple "What do you think of XYZ Apartments" will do.
• Mystery shop your competitors to see what they're saying about you.  Mention to the leasing agent that you're also looking at XYZ Apartments and see what they have to say about your community.
• Visit your neighbors.  Stop into businesses, catch neighborhood residents when they're outside...introduce yourself and see what kind of reaction you'll get.  Get a feel for how well known your community is.  Ask them if they have any questions.  Some people will be pretty straightforward and share concerns if they have them.

Once you've established what your reputation is, you need a plan of attack.  Look at all of your research and find the trends.  Obviously, you want your reputation to be good, so the key is to play up your strengths and try to correct your weeknesses.  For example, if people love your beautiful grounds and friendly staff, really make it a point to include those things as a part of all of your advertising and sales pitches.  If people think you raise rates too much or have issues with parking, then find a way to work on those things to make them less of an issue. 

In the October 2009 issue of Units magazine, distributed by the NAA, there is an article about the online presence and rating apartment communities throughout the U.S.*  In particular, the storyline focused on ApartmentRatings.com and the comments left by past and present residents.  If you are not familiar with ApartmentRatings.com, the online forum is a database where residents and ex-residents rate their respective communities. 

The site displays an average score based on reviewers' opinions on parking, maintenance, construction, noise, grounds, safety and office staff.  If you have never been to the site, I highly recommend you do.  Perhaps, your apartment is rated by your residents on ApartmentRatings.com.  It's always good to know what your residents are saying about you.

Word of mouth advertising has always been a strong marketing tool in the multifamily industry.  This article begs the question, how many of us actually know what our residents think about the job we are doing?  Does your community issue satisfaction surveys and do you take these comments seriously?  If not, you probably want to do all you can to stop losing residents and prospects.  Go ahead and type in your apartment community's name in a search engine.  You are almost sure to see ApartmentRatings.com appear on the search if you have comments on the forum.

Don't get me wrong; I'm a big believer in Social Media and what it can do for apartment community marketing, resident retention, recruiting and more. But sometimes when we're in such a rush to update our Facebook status, Tweet our latest adventures/ideas/inane things (yes, I'm guilty of that), video our thoughts and upload them to YouTube, blog about our opinions, or IM with our coworkers, clients and friends, I worry that we're forgetting the original 'social media'. 

We LIVE with our customers. No other industry can really say that. We become interconnected with their lives, like it or not. We know about their out-of-control kids, their loud romantic activities, where they shop (because we sign for the packages and allow the delivery people into their apartment), where they work, how much they make and what their credit rating is. We know their pets, their pet peeves, where they work, where they work out, and we often know when they are out and about. In short, we know much more about our customers than the typical Starbuck's barista or Target cashier.

 We are the original Social Media-building community both online and so importantly, in person. . We created connections, created content, provided social gathering places and made the peer recommendations. And we still do.