Property Management

Festival apartment marketing

2 hours and we have handedout about 50 flyers and had some really
productive conversations.

Stay Fluid...

Festival apartment marketing

Next time we might get a tent. Its heating up out.

Earthday apartment marketing

Our first attempt at festival marketing. We are setting up our table
now. And it absolutely beautiful outside.

Guest Bloggers on the Property Management Blog

For sometime now I have been thinking about inviting other Passionate Property Management Professionals to be guest posters on the Property Management blog. And, the time has come.

I am so excited to announce the addition of Eric Brown from Urbane Apartments. Eric is truly a property management maniac. Despite the fact that Eric and me have never met formally I have no doubt that he is both charismatic and compelling. When you read his first two posts on our blog, I think you will agree;

Want More Rent? -Eric Brown
Do the Right Thing -Eric Brown

So help me in welcoming Eric to the mix and I look forward to the amazing and over the top commentary he will offer us, his fellow PM Maniacs. Welcome E, I look forward to the dent that will be made in the Property Management Universe.

Have an amazing Sunday everyone. M


Technorati Tags: Eric Brown, property management, mike brewer

Do the Right Thing

Perhaps that public forum on your web site may just help nudge you or your company along to “Do the Right Thing“ and improve performance. It was 7:40 PM, Friday evening as I made my trek home after a long busy week, when my cell phone rings. On the other end of the line was an upset past resident, who had not received her final statement and security deposit. Being the eighteenth of the month we were still well within our thirty day window here in MI to process final statements, however I had told this person that the final statement would be processed by Friday. When questioned about it, I simply told the truth, No we didn’t process your final statement, I just ran out of time, could we meet at the office Monday and we will have the paperwork ready then? An empathic No proceeded, you promised to have it done by Friday, and it is Friday, we want it tonight! Now, there were several choices I could have made at this point, including the old adage “Contractually” or “Per your Lease Agreement” or whatever other things we sometimes choose to hide behind when we have a need to prove ourselves right. Well, here is what I didn’t want to happen, a negative blog entry or bulletin board post slamming me or our company, or if there is and there may be, it is as easy as a few key strokes, and there it is for the whole world to see and comment on and chime in on, I can now respond with “I am sorry we promised the final statement for Friday and didn’t deliver, but I am glad we were able to meet you Saturday morning at 10:00 AM to resolve this.

So, the point of this real story is this; Would my reaction have been different Pre Blog Posts, Pre Bulletin Boards, Pre On Line Polls and Surveys, where it is as easy as a few clicks to expose us, Yes, it likely would have been pretty easy to just meet them on Monday and discount their concerns. Not anymore my friends, take heed, They, Our Residents, our Customers are in control, and will mow you over if you are not true. So, start a blog today, start a bulletin board, start an on line forum on your web site, it may, just maybe will self improve you and your employees performance more than you will ever know.

Have a Great Weekend, I am off to do a Final Statement!

Want More Rent?

Color, Color, Color, add Color! Painting your units with color WILL start your trek to Break from the Pack. It is easy and you can afford it. What if you couldn’t afford not to? In today’s economy you can negotiate a deal with your local painter, and not just an accent wall, DIFFERENT colors in different rooms.  It is as simple as choosing a few 6-8 different color pallets as options, and paint away. If you want to stand out from the folks across the street, start with color.

Want to really stand out, use COLOR and Low Emitting Paint, and start the path toward a “Greener Building” This stuff works, and is easy to implement, but……………., don’t ask, everyone will tell you no. Be the renegade, do it anyway and see the results in a unit that rented faster and for higher rents.

More to follow on Getting More Rent…………., and Thank you Mike for allowing me to articulate my thoughts and views on How to Break from the Pack herein on this venue.

Roommates.com

I find this whole thing highly engaging. This article comes from The Tribune, somewhere near Houston, Texas best I can tell. So far I would agree with this the argument articulated in this article;

"The law should respect and protect the right of Roommates.com, or any
other such matching service, to design a questionnaire that suits their
customers' needs. Roommate seekers who object to a particular
questionnaire are free to find another matching service, or to start
their own.

"This case illustrates why the
Fair Housing Act, which does nothing but infringe on freedom of
contract in the housing market, should be repealed." [read the rest here]

Technorati Tags: roommates.com, apartments, multi-family, mike brewer

Shadow market tracking

I think the multi-family industry in general is looking for a way to track the shadow market. The shadow being that elusive number of single-family homes that are up for rent as opposed to sale.

One way to track is to set up the RSS function in Craigslist. I used this when I lived in Portland, Oregon and now do the same in Saint Louis, Misery. (not a typo, just a state of mind). The feed will dump every new update into your feedreader thus giving you a sense for the volume of ads being added in each respective listing topic. In Portland the number was well over 200 new ads every 12 hours. That was tracking the apts / housing section of their site. That number was in April of 2007 and was up from roughly 100 ads every 12 hours in the months of Oct, Nov and Dec of 2006. Suggesting to me that the shadow market started to swell in Q1 of 07.

It's not science but it at least gave me a sense for what we were up against.



Technorati Tags: shadow market, craigslist, mike brewer

Widgets and RSS feeds

Widget: a small piece of code that generates a feed producing icon on your desktop, website, blog, etc.

RSS: Really Simple Syndication, a sender and receiver of updates from blogs, news feeds, social media updates, etc.

I wonder if it would be possible to set up a widget or RSS feed that would update prospects who elected not to lease on their first visit.

You could send pricing and special updates and or be-back coupons.

Apartment forums: the new focus group

I think forums can be used in an effort to gain insight before you launch that new marketing campaign or new resident relations program or frankly anything you are thinking about doing as an enterprise. The neat thing about online apartment forums is that, unlike real life forums, people let their guards down. They give you the real unadulterated truth about it.

I mean think about the times you have let some one have it in an email or you have taken the time to write a letter to the owner of a company who just provided you with dismal service. You let them have it. Why? No fear of reprisal. It doesn't mean it's not there, it just means your not afraid of it and thus you type on.

It is the same for online forums. Maybe this is a bad analogy but it is not unlike the person who has one to many cocktails at the Christmas party and tells the boss what he or she really thinks about him or her.

I may be getting off track a bit so the point is this. The online apartment forum is a place where you can get the real skinny on your product but more important, you can act.


Technorati Tags: apartment forums, apartment portals