Apartment Residential

Last week, I discussed what it would be like to be an exceptional apartment community, and how that would affect our view of our community, our confidence in our product, and our entire operational process.  I would like to expand upon one of the bigger elements:

Creating a community that truly provides a memorable experience shifts
work from a sales-oriented model to an experience-oriented model.

What does that truly mean, and why is it so difficult?  As I mentioned, if you have a scarce product, and you have high demand, sales happens easily on its own.  The problem is somewhat of a “chicken and the egg” scenario, however, because how do you allocate labor to creating an experience, when you need that labor to plug the holes from residents walking out the door? 

What can you do to show you appreciate someone, your residents, your family, your friends, or the person on the street you just passed?  As we learn and use the wonderful features of technology and social media, we tend to not interrelate like we once did.  We have all emailed the person in the next cubicle or office, and texted someone when we could have called them. What three things can you do on a daily basis that makes a difference in how people connect and react to you?

Everyone has three things they can do to let others know they matter.  I recently sent an email about this to my fellow teams. Incidentally, I received more replies than normal and I would like to share some of the unedited feedback.

1. Smile and compliment them.
2. Make them feel welcome; tell them they have been approved for their new home.
3. Ask them “How can we help”?
4. Tell them you appreciate them, maybe bring them a coffee and tell them one nice thing! Or just give them a big hug.
5.  Listen, people want to be heard and know that what they have to say matters, and it shows you value them, as well as what they have to say.
6.  Speak directly to them, look in their eyes, and be attentive.
7.  Use their name when you talk to them, it makes them feel important and gets their  attention.
8.  A simple acknowledgement, “Great Job”.
9.  To a stranger driving and trying to get in your lane, “Just wave and let them in”.
10.  Stand up and greet them when someone walks into your office. Tell them how special they are every time you see them. 

This is timeless and relevant in this exciting and incredibly busy life we share.  Our lives are increasingly demanding, and the technology creates more texting, emailing, posting, tweeting, and less opportunities for those random meetings.

In the early days of my leasing career, I was fortunate enough to work for a company that realized the benefits of offering a ‘hefty’ reward for perfect leasing of the property. The goal – 100% leased.  The reward – dinner.  Not just any dinner, but dinner for the entire leasing team, anywhere in St. Louis we selected and we could order anything we wanted.  Shazaam!!  This was a big deal.  Such a big deal that we pushed daily to achieve this goal.  Often the 100% leased status only last a day or two, due to applicants being denied or the inevitable cancellation, but we were still maintaining incredible leasing percentages and occupancy; all on a property with harvest gold appliances and chocolate brown carpet!  The entire team would be talking about where we would go, what we would wear and what we would order and cheering each other on to reach that goal on a daily basis. 

The cost to the owners of this extravaganza?  For a staff of 5-6 team members, at most $1,000.00 and that’s probably on the high end.  Heck, we were dining at places without prices on the menus!

The payoff for owners?  Thousands and thousands of dollars, for years to come.  At an average rent of $500.00 per month on a 400 unit property maintaining an average of 97% occupancy, tip to 100% leased, that’s a lot of revenue. But just for old times’ sake, let’s do the math.  400 units leased/390 units occupied x $500 rent per month x 12 months lease term = $2,340,000.00 annually.  More when they renewed.

Hola! Aquí estamos. Are you ready, or not?

As property owners, managers or leasing agents, you understand the need to conserve energy at your apartment community.  By installing energy-efficient appliances and windows and using eco-friendly alternatives for floors, countertops and paint, you are not only significantly reducing your carbon footprint, but also banking significant savings on energy costs.  If 10,000 owners of large apartment communities change to Energy-Star appliances, the energy saved could power each of your TVs for 1,640,625 years!  While the people on the property level are doing their part to protect the environment, we want to provide you with four sustainable tips you can share with your environmentally-friendly residents—leading up to Earth Day on April 22^nd—that they can put into practice today.

1. Be a Savvy Shopper

By Colin McCarthy, J.D., Robinson & Wood, San Jose, CA

I once lived in house in downtown San Jose that was next to an abandoned "historic" house. The house was abandoned because it was "historic." The city had an ordinance that prevented the owner from demolishing the building and rebuilding it, or selling it. Because the house was built before a certain time, the city ordinance prohibited him from doing anything with the property other than fixing it up. Rather than doing that, in protest, he did nothing with the property. And I mean nothing, other than board it up.

Mistake! You see it was downtown San Jose. It was right in the middle of urban, night time activities. The abandoned home soon became a sort of an attractive spot for the seedier and less fortunate souls. We frequently had to call the police. There were the typical late night guests, drinking, broken glass, and other non-printable activities going on in there. After enough of these visits, the neighbors reported the landlord to the city, and hearings were held. Fines were levied. Landlords got mad. Fences were put up.

I toured an apartment complex the other day and was asking tons of questions of my leasing agent (who knew that I was a developer and was just shopping their product). I am always struck by the wall that goes up when you ask demographic questions (I do get that that these young folks are taught to not even address these questions for fear of being hunted down by the crazy Fair Housing police). Unfortunately, as a developer, these are about the only questions that really concern me.

When choosing whether or not to undertake a $50M investment, understanding who the prospective renter is- is actually a critical part of my job. Of course there is always the basic demographic info that we get from our consultants:

By Salvatore Friscia, San Diego Premier Property Management, San Diego, CA

It was just a few months ago when the tenants were in the office signing the one year lease agreement. The leasing agent followed the office procedures and made sure to review the lease terms and obligations prior to asking for binding signatures. Then with the swipe of a pen the property was considered off the market and occupied for the year.

When’s the last time you Googled your property? What did you see? Harmful reviews that you didn’t know existed? Outdated property photos? Incorrect information?

Oftentimes we get so caught up in the day-to-day operations and running our apartment business that we fail to put ourselves in the perspective of the consumer (or apartment prospect), the true reason we exist and ultimately the factor that will contribute to our successes or demise. I want to offer a suggestion—er, or rather a challenge—to all on-site professional property managers and staff: Google your property. What do you see?

What might be more fascinating is what you don’t see. Generally, when a potential renter finds us from a traditional ILS (i.e. apartments.com, apartmentguide.com, etc.) and expresses interest, he or she will most likely Google that property, look for reviews and other insightful information that will guide their decision. On the flipside, prospects already aware of a community’s name might bypass an ILS, and Google a property’s name to gain knowledge. This is where savvy on-site staff can truly shine by utilizing all outlets available to flood a search engine with pictures, amenities, and language that can sway a prospect to rent. So, what will you find when you do a Google search?

In the spirit of March Madness and, of course, all things data, I thought it would be nifty to craft a visualization of actual Apartments.com data in tournament bracket style.  With the help of our very talented Senior Graphic Designer, Laurie Genzlinger, we put together a data driven visualization that illustrates the top 16 user searched amenities on Apartments.com. 

To make this happen, we seeded each amenity, one through four, based on total searches and broke them into four conferences.  We then took this search data and let it solely dictate the outcome of the matchup, advancing the amenity with the higher relative search volume.  In short, our final four top searched amenities consisted of: Washer/Dryer in Unit, Parking, Dishwasher and Air Conditioning.  After a grueling round of matchups, Washer/Dryer in Unit and Air Conditioning moved to the finals, with Washer/Dryer taking the title.

I like this visualization because it illustrates the importance of each of these amenities, relative to another, in the eyes of the renter.  For example, hardwood floors may be important to renters, but next to high speed internet it falls short.  Taking that a step further, the same included high speed internet is a really nice feature, but relative to parking, parking takes the cake.