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:

Income breakdowns. Traffic counts. Local rent comparisons. Gender breakdowns. Blah, Blah, Blah…

But to best serve the community and position my leasing team for success, it’s all demographics and psychographics:

·         What are the racial and sexual preference demographics in the area?

·         What kind of cars do they drive? Do they require regular or premium gasoline?

·         Do they wash the car themselves or use a service?

·         Do they drink beer and wine or alcohol? Which brands? How often?

·         Do they have their shirts dry cleaned?

·         What gym do they belong to? Do they go or just pay for the membership?

·         What TV shows do they watch?

·         Do they have or want to have children?

·         Did they grow up poor or middle class or wealthy?

And on and on…

The reason that I want to know this is because it is my job to create a home for them for the next 1-3 years of their lives. It is also my job to beat every other community in the vicinity. At a building level, of course I want my community to fit seamlessly into architectural and urban fabric (I want it to look like a place to call home) of its surroundings. But once inside, my community needs to resonate with who they are…and more specifically, with who they want to be.

Each one of us has a series of postcards that represent how we see our lives at different stages to come. These postcards are idealized versions of our imagined future. If you want to see some of the master’s of reading postcards in action, just look at the marketing of major clothing designers. Ralph Lauren, Abercrombie and Fitch, Chanel…these companies know their buyers’ postcards better than anyone. A great exercise when you look at any one of their ads is to focus on the background. This is the context for the product- it is the postcard. This is the life that the customer wants to be living in the moment that they put on that overpriced sport coat…or belt.

The developer’s job is to understand the postcard of where our tenants want to be in 2-3 years.  You see our job is to give them early access to the life they want- but is just out of reach. And by fully understanding their postcard, we can tweak the design and amenities to help make a connection between our product and their goals- thereby making the job of the leasing agent much easier. Otherwise, we are just creating a series of boxes in which they can store their stuff.