If we look at an individual piece of equipment in any of our amenities, it is usually pretty easy to determine whether it is broken or not.  Is the treadmill working?  Does the pool table have a big gash in the felt?  Is it missing the cue ball?  For the individual components of our amenities, it is often pretty easy to see what is wrong and then take steps to fix it.  But what if we analyzed our amenities as a whole?  If we saw our community clubhouse as one giant piece of equipment, would we know if it was actually working, or maybe it is broken and we don’t even know it?

What Is The Community Clubhouse Supposed To Do?

If we were looking at individual components of our amenities, it’s pretty clear what their purpose is.  For example, a playground swing is supposed to…  swing.  A pool fountain is supposed to squirt water in some way.  And a cappuccino maker is supposed to make cappuccinos.  Fairly simple, right?  But when we talk about amenities as a whole, it isn’t always so obvious.

Our community clubhouse isn’t meant to just exist in order for us to say we have one.  The clubhouse has a purpose, which is to ultimately help drive new leases and renewals, right?  But there are many phases at which the clubhouse can “break” on its way to its goal of renewals:

1. My community has XYZ amenity
2. The amenity fits my particular needs or interests
3. XYZ amenity is pretty/impressive and makes me want to use it
4. I have used XYZ amenity
5. I regularly use XYZ amenity
6. XYZ amenity makes me happy
7. My happiness with XYZ amenity makes me want to stay at my community

After stage three is where amenities most often break at communities.  Our leasing process is so focused on the sale that we want to make sure the amenity is inviting for that initial lease.  But after that, we don’t take much stock into whether it was ultimately used, whether it made the resident happy, or whether it affected the decision to renew.   And if we miss any of these steps, then we must consider our amenity broken.

How Do We Determine Whether Our Community Clubhouse is Broken?

Without guessing, tell me exactly what percentage of your residents have used the clubhouse over the past three months.  The vast majority of communities would have absolutely no way of answering that question.  So what we are left are guesstimates based upon management’s recollection, which can be horribly skewed.  For one, the on-site staff doesn’t simply hang out in the clubhouse.  Even if the leasing office is combined, you are busy with running the property and so it’s difficult to get firm numbers on how many people are using it.  Plus, our perceptions can be completely manipulated.  For example, let’s say there are 30 people hanging out in the clubhouse right now.  That would seem like a lot of people, right?  But if it was the same 30 people every time, that means that the clubhouse is only running at 10% of efficiency when reaching all of your residents.  For a piece of equipment, 10% isn’t all that great, but it sure seems like it is doing fantastic based purely on what we perceive.

So in the end, if we don’t have a way to measure the usage rate of our amenities, we have no idea whether they are broken or not.

Is Your Community Clubhouse Designed To Break?

Without ever going to a given community, I could fairly easily guess that many of the amenities are broken, because so often they are designed to break.  Here are some of the top reasons:

• The amenity is closed during hours when residents are most likely to use it.  It is amazing how many amenities are only open during office hours, which are almost perfectly aligned for when residents are not even home. 
• The amenity is designed poorly.  This happens most often when the amenity is added because all the comps have one. So rather than really analyzing how people would use that amenity, it is designed just to say that the community has one.  This might work in the initial sale, but almost completely guarantees that it will break for every renewal.
• The amenity has a “set it and forget it” mentality.  Just because you have a gym, or clubhouse, or pool, doesn’t mean your residents will actually use it.  Maybe it’s a function of being the wrong amenity for your target demographic, maybe its designed poorly, or maybe it needs activities to support it.  For example, I have seen countless community theaters completely empty, so maybe it needed scheduled events and reminders to get people to start using it.

Previously, analyses of amenities were often limited to two questions:  1) Do we have XYZ amenity, and 2) How does it compare to our comps.  Very little attention was placed on whether residents even used it, or if they did, whether it improved the chances they would renew their lease.  But we need to start realizing that even though the amenity may look fine on the surface, it may actually be horribly broken in reality.  But if we label it as “broken”, we can start assessing what steps that amenity is breaking down on and develop strategies to fix them!