Resident Retention

By Jo-Anne Oliveri, ireviloution intelligence, Brisbane, Australia

Recently, I have been involved in the sale and purchase of a rent roll. I had the rare opportunity of consulting for both the buyer and purchaser. Let me say, this was the smoothest and least stressful rent roll transfer I have ever witnessed!

Now some might say there is a conflict of interest by consulting to both the seller and the purchaser, and yes, I would agree! I definitely had my reservations about consulting and advising to both of them, but I discussed my dilemma with both parties. They both agreed they would retain me as the consultant and adviser through the negotiation, transfer, settlement, transition and retention period. In fact, I even conducted the inspection and overview on the selling rent-roll, and prepared the due diligence report.

No matter what our role is within the multi-family industry, there is always one word which is used more than any other; “community.” Some of us own communities, some of us develop communities, some of us design communities and others of us lease or operate them. And chances are that many of us live in an apartment, condominium or townhome community as well. So then why is it that there is so little ‘community’ in our communities?

When it comes down to this failure’s root cause, it can really only be one of two choices;

a.       Either the management team does not expend their energies in a manner that creates a welcoming and vibrant atmosphere that encourages interaction, or

And I'm not talking the married kind of engagement. (although that can be pretty pricey too)

I'm talking the price of engagement in regards to social media. I was not a bandwagon social media user. I wanted to understand how to engage and converse with our residents and potential residents before I jumped on the social media train. I also wanted to understand how to measure engagement and then translate that to value for our clients. 

For me, the  issue with social media is not the time it takes to post, blog or tweet, the issue is engagement. Are you maximizing on opportunities of engagement? Are you talking at your residents and prospects are talking with them? Having thousands of fans or followers are great but what are you doing with them?

What gives you the best engagement bang for you buck? I have included my top three.

DON'T BE A NEWS FEED HOG

Posting and tweeting are a marathon, not a race. If you clog up their news feed, they are sure to unfollow or unsubscribe. Studies show a post every 3-4 hours is the sweet spot.

INSIGHTS

Are you looking at your insights page? Your insights page has a wealth of information and demographics. Use that to your advantage when posting. 

FEEDBACK SCORE

Look at your most successful post (in terms of likes, comments, impressions, re-tweets, etc) and figure out your feedback score. For the posts with the highest feedback percentage, do you see a pattern of posts people engage with most... sports, fashion, decorating ideas? 

I benchmark everything. As a Director of Marketing, making sure my marketing team's time is well spent requires just that, benchmarking everything. Have we figured out the secret formula to social media, engagement and ROI.. not yet but I'm working on it. :-)

Happy posting!

Sparkle Hammond, M.Ed.  First Communities | Director of Marketing
shammond@firstcommunities.net
www.century-apartments.com | www.facebook.com/centuryapartmenthomes

By Steven Van Zile, Total Management, New York, NY

Within the past 24 hours, here are the maintenance issues I’ve experienced at the property where I reside: the maintenance person, loyal to this building for 33 years, responds to a clogged toilet by advising us to pour bleach down the toilet. Concurrently, the intercom buzzer is stuck and won’t shut off. And, of course, the elevator renovation that started out as a one week project actually turned into a three week project, providing 6^th floor tenants the opportunity to save money by cancelling their gym memberships.

It’s always seemed simple to me; as residents, we pay rent, maintenance fees, or mortgage payments and the property management staff provide services for the resident. Building and trust owners hire those property managers based on their abilities to keep churn rates low, vacancy at zero, and tenants happy all at or below a budget designed to re-invest in the property. So what happens when we tenants aren’t happy? Well, in today’s age of instant knowledge and access, a lot of renters turn to rating sites like Yelp or apartmentratings.com to spitefully pen scathing reviews in an attempt warn others. These sites might be seen as a threat, but if you’re really good at your job, more transparency can only help you, and reviews will actually help your business grow.

Let me start out by saying I know Brent is going to say this is too long.  However, tried shortening and it just doesn't have the same impact...so here goes.

Never will you hear an owner or supervisor say, "It's about the people...not the money."  That being said, it is about having the right people to insure NOI increases and the property is profitable.  Our job is to increase property values with one of the primary ways being the increase of Net Operating Income.  We look at how we can improve NOI with the obvious being revenue increases.  We do this through several key factors, however, we do not always keep them in mind as our site personnel go about their daily tasks. 

*  The first and most important way is through resident retention.  In no other area can we have such a positive impact on income and expenses both.  This is done through exceeding resident expectations, providing "WOW" customer service, effective communications, and insuring all of the team contributes and understands the critical nature of how it impacts the bottom line.  We preach resident retention, however, I suggest we don't practice it on an every day basis.  This is where having the right people, the right training, the right follow-up, and the right attitude will make the difference between success or failure.

With the high cost of tenant turnover, finding a way to preserve existing residents and increase the likelihood of lease renewals is valuable to residential property managers. A 2011 study conducted by SatisFacts Research estimated that each unit's turnover resulted in approximately $3900 in costs over the average 40-day vacancy period. Among these costs are maintenance expenses, concessions and lost rental income. That figure alone demonstrates the high value of maintaining resident retention. 

Let me begin by wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah. For those of you who regularly read my scribbles, you are used to some pretty meaty topics. In light of the Holidays, this one will be a bit frothier. In each blog that I write there are certain themes which remain pretty consistent. One of my favorites is that real estate development is about the coolest industry on the planet. After all, our job is to make the world a better, more usable, more beautiful place.

Often my intended audience is the real estate developer (my hope is of course that there is some part of my subject matter which translates to my non-developer audience- or at least helps you better understand those temperamental developers who constantly tell you ‘We can’t afford that.’). Today, I would like to remind us all of something that is very easily glossed over as we perform our day-to-day tasks.

Some communities struggle with great maintenance and customer service – this blog is not for them.  Instead, I’m speaking to those communities who already do a fantastic job at customer service, have low response times for their apartment maintenance, and overall have the “fundamentals” down pat.

Let’s say you live at a community with horrible service, and that is why you are leaving.  Well, that is going to be at the top of your “must have” list because it is a struggle you are having at that moment.  But if you are living at a community with solid service, then you aren’t as focused on that aspect because it’s not a concern.  And if you tour a community that talks about their great service, there is a chance you will take their word on it.  In other words, you don’t understand the importance of what you have until it’s gone.  (I’m pretty sure there is a love song in there, somewhere)

So in a strange sense, your strong customer service and maintenance program may not be appreciated until they have already moved out and learn first-hand what they are missing.  It might feel nice they they are missing you now, but that doesn’t change the fact that they have already left your community. 

With the holiday spirit all around, this is a great time of year to get your residents together and show them your appreciation.  Here are a couple fun ideas that you can do around your apartment community:

1.       Resident gifts:  A small gift for your residents is an easy way to say thank you for living in your community and the holidays are a great time to surprise them.  Order T-shirts or sustainable bags with your branding on them for each resident.  Print some festive notes to say Happy Holidays and put them in your resident mailboxes.  Each resident can use the note to redeem their gift from the leasing office.  This would also be a great time to have them update their contact information with you.  Your residents will love their new swag and your branding will be all over the city.