Multifamily Insiders

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.

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

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:

A few months ago, Facebook announced the release of Timeline, a new interface made to boost engagement and user connectivity for all pages, especially for brands and businesses. Come March 30th, all Facebook Pages will have made the transition to the Timeline format.
 
Today, let’s focus on the aspects in Timeline that are different from your current Business Page. Mashable did a great job explaining the major changes, and we’ve added our insights to relate this to your community.
 
1. Updated Look and Feel: The format of Timeline for brands is quite similar to Timeline for personal profiles. A cover photo lives at the top of the Page, and the Page is separated into two main columns with a dividing line representing the passage of time. This format provides you with new options for story telling: You can outline your history with milestones (such as grand openings, resident events, etc.) to construct a narrative for your audience.
 
2. Reduced Tab/App Visibility: The new Timeline format does not have the left-side panel of links, which could include hundreds of different tabs. While applications still exist, they’ll display differently, in rectangular panels underneath the cover photo. The width of the Timeline and the space allocated for native apps like Photos means that only four tab panels are viewable at any given time. To see more, users must expand the tab panel by clicking a drop-down box. You have the ability to assign which tabs you want to display in the top four panels.
 
3. Pins: One major new feature that you as a property manager will enjoy is the ability to “pin” certain posts to the top of the Timeline. Pinning a post to the top of Timeline allows it to precede any other content. A pinned post is distinguished by a small, orange flag. Brands can pin only one item at a time, and the pinned item then exists in two locations — as the top item on the Timeline itself, as well as within its chronological place. Once unpinned (which happens automatically when a new item gets pinned, or when the item has been pinned for more than seven days), the post remains in the chronology of Timeline posts, but there is no visual history that it was pinned in the past.
 
4. Stars: Starring will extend a post to double its width across the timeline, making it larger than the rest of the posts as users navigate the page. This feature is ideal for posts with a high level of engagement, a call to action or a promotion you want to make sure your residents see.
 
5. Private Messages between Brands and Fans/Residents: Finally, you can maintain a conversation with your residents in the form of a private message. This enables a broadened level of interaction, and will also allow Page admins to take extended resident concerns off the Timeline and into a private message.
 
Take a look at Starbuck’s Timeline for a great guide on utilizing each Timeline feature to help you tell your story. 

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?

Keys to the communication kingdom are sometimes hard to grasp.  Nothing in business is more important than communication.  You can have the best plans, the greatest ideas, but if you don’t have effective communication, your results won’t be stellar. 

I recently received an email from a property manager sharing with me her response to a resident about an issue where the resident wasn’t clearly informed, and I quote, “I let her know (the resident) that we have a web site and a face book fan page, I also let her know we send out newsletters every month on top of crime watch meetings. She does not want a computer at home, she said that the newsletters are a waste of good paper and she doesn’t have time to attend any kind of meeting. Aside from staying after work and waiting for her to get home, I do not know how she would like us to communicate with her”.

This is definitely a tough nut to crack, so, how is a property manager supposed to communicate with someone who doesn’t utilize technology? How about going low tech, a notice laminated and posted at the mail box kiosk, everyone gets mail and has to pick it up at some point, and of course there is the laundry area, there is usually always a bulletin board for postings there.  Did we ever ask the resident how she would like to be communicated with? I think in this age of new technology, we forget about talking with one other, it’s important to speak to your residents each time you engage with them. Know your audience, understand how they listen, and remember, not everyone has a Face Book page, email, or smart phone, nor do they want them.  Do you know anyone over 65 or 70 that doesn’t have a smart phone?  I do, and we have to find ways to communicate that doesn’t involve technology.

When recently asked about which skill I felt was the most important for a real estate developer to possess, I was stumped for about thirty seconds (which is an eternity when someone is staring at you and waiting). My mind raced. How could I not just rattle-off something well thought out and brilliant? Shouldn’t this be a question that every developer must be able to answer without flinching? Well- I flinched. But at the end of that short eternity, my answer was ‘They must be great storytellers.’

 I say this for one simple reason: At his most basic level, the developer is a master salesman. We sell our visions and dreams to our investment committees, the communities in which we work, municipalities, equity partners and debt providers, and eventually to the end user.

I just wanted to share with you some recent insights we gained from a nationwide survey of more than 500 college students in which we asked them about the types of information sources they use when looking for a place to live. No surprise, but Google scores highest among college students as they continue to turn away from traditional advertising – such as ads in campus newspapers – and instead go online to shop for apartments. Fifty-three percent of students we surveyed ranked Google/internet searches as most important in helping them find a place to live. Friends’ recommendations and those from parents followed at 37 percent and 27 percent, respectively. They identified Facebook, ads in the student newspaper, student activities sponsored by apartment communities and online ads/promotions as least important in helping them find an apartment.

Our survey also found that 98 percent of college students use Google Search to find information online, and 71 percent of the students ranked Google as the most important website/application they use. Google was followed in order of importance by university websites and Facebook. The students said they rarely turned to Twitter or Google+, which is still relatively new. In fact, the majority of students surveyed said they never use Twitter. We also found that when looking for an apartment, few students use apartment-specific websites, such as apartments.com or apartmentguide.com. Our survey showed they prefer to simply use Internet search engines to find information about apartment communities. As expected, they also placed greater importance on digital marketing methods that leveraged the social media posts/messages of friends and peers, as well as email messages. This is not surprising as college students are becoming increasingly savvy in how they filter digital media marketing messages. And, like in other areas of their lives, they are using search engines, Facebook pages and comments from friends as tools in their search for apartments. What we did not expect was the percentage of students who found traditional student newspaper ads as being ineffective.

The survey’s findings mirror those seen in college student focus groups we conducted in the fall, and they demonstrate that digital media is becoming increasingly prevalent among college students as a resource when making rental housing decisions. Other highlights from the survey include:

• Almost half (47 percent) of students surveyed spend four to seven hours online every day
• The majority of students have some type of smartphone with 42 percent saying they have an iPhone and 30 percent saying they have an Android
• 61 percent of students say they will watch a video that is on a website they are visiting
• 78 percent of students surveyed said they would use Facebook to learn more about an apartment community
• Email (68 percent) and texting (49 percent) were ranked as their most important methods of electronic communication

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John Kerrigan is CEO of Catalyst, an Austin-based marketing firm that specializes in the student housing industry.

Valentine’s Day has come and gone, but once again the occasion raised the question; is it a day full of love and romance, or simply an over-glamorized “Hallmark” holiday? During the week of the fourteenth, the topic of Valentine’s took over social media platforms everywhere, as an inundation of tweets and posts told the tale of two hearts, one positive and one negative. As “#HappyValentine’sDay” was a trending topic on Twitter, “#Happytobesingle” followed close behind from those who were not as enthused. Whether the array of red and pink decor, flower bouquets and chocolate heart boxes leave you feeling tickled pink or filled with anxiety and despair, Valentine’s Day still provides some informative takeaways for your business.

1. Don’t limit your gestures to special occasions, spread the love year-round.
Although holidays are an appropriate opportunity to show someone you care, provide gifts to family and friends and maybe partake in the annual mingling with relatives, these kind gestures ought to become habit all year long—and your marketing efforts should follow suit. Building relationships and engaging with residents must be an ongoing occurrence, especially in your social media interactions. Share the love each day by setting aside time to interact with residents through social media.