Effectiveness of Market Surveys...

Ugh... the dreaded Market Surveys!  Am I the only one that feels this way?  Our company’s policy is to do a minimum of two each year, although I have read that in some markets it is recommended to do it on a monthly basis.  Don't get me wrong, I know the market is continually changing on a day to day basis, and I do see the need for Market Surveys but it still does not make me enjoy doing them nonetheless. Thank goodness for the internet which saves me a lot of time to accomplish these daunting Market Surveys... but you can't find the real answers until you actually make contact with the other properties.  You know the questions I'm referring to, "what's your occupancy?", "Running any specials?", "How's your traffic been?”  You know the questions that rarely come with an honest response.  If I didn’t have a sense of humor, this could become very frustrating. 

During my several years of apartment management I have classified the four types of answers that I receive when doing my, oh so important Market Survey.  Now, please use caution there is excessive use of sarcasm to come.

The first one entitled and never convincing, "Oh... we are fully occupied... 100%" gets me every time.  In fact if I had a quarter for every time one of my competitors told me that they are 100% occupied I would never have to do a market survey again because I would be sitting on the beach with a Mojito in my hand!  In fact, no matter what time of year there are always a few properties that will claim they are 100% occupied even though we know for a fact they are not.  So, if this is you, please note you really aren’t fooling anyone.

Then you have the "blame it on my home office policy".  I know you are familiar with this one…where the leasing consultant claims that they cannot give out that information per their home office.  Would you not assume in this economy that their home office would want them to be forthcoming with this information?  What could honestly happen if their manager answered a few simple questions, perhaps something good could come out of it, perhaps rentals through referrals?  Has that home office never heard of the old stand-by, "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine?" Perhaps they should, as a manager of a property that does not have two bedroom units but does receive A LOT of calls for them, I could always use one more property to refer them to. 

Then you have my favorite one, "Oh wow... you know I'm really busy right now... much too busy to answer those three simple questions that you have, in fact I probably could have just answered them in less time then what is taking me to say this long drawn out sentence but I really just don't want to tell you because if I sound like I'm busy you may perceive it as me actually being busy".  If this is you, then I don’t know if there is hope for you… maybe you should request an assistant from home office if you are THAT busy and do not foresee yourself not being busy within the next 365 days for a call back.

And of course my least favorite one, “the way too honest property manager”, we all know this one.  The one that a five minute phone call turns into a therapy session discussing everything from the economy to their inability to retain residents.  As you stay on the line, comforting the unknown person on the other line in hopes that you talk them down from the ledge that you feel almost responsible for pushing them towards, you begin to realize you are not qualified for this added responsibility and begin to agree with everything they say in the mere hope that someone will walk into their office and finally rent.

Awe…yes… the joys of Market Surveys.  Okay, perhaps I’m being a little sarcastic and a tad bit of a drama queen but let’s face it… how accurate are these Market Surveys?  The inevitable truth is the only real way to know for sure how your competition is doing is by investigating and coming as close to an answer as possible… but again is that accurate? 

I will continue to do my Market Surveys and I will continue to call those people that are 100% occupied or too busy to take my call.  I might wait until 5:25 to call the latter one so that I have a legitimate reason to get off the phone as would she, but I will call.   

My question for all of you is… do you have this problem?  How do you get around it?  Is there really a light at the end of the tunnel for Market Surveys?  Let me know!