Online marketing, leasing, resident services and mobile capabilities push apartment occupancy near 100%
SANTA BARBARA, CALIF., July 09, 2014 – Property management company Tarragon Property Services casts a wider marketing net, executes the complete leasing process online and provides convenient online resident services—all with RentCafe™. The upshot is consistently near-full occupancy.
Tarragon uses RentCafe, a full online leasing and resident services solution, to attract prospects to its apartment units in Washington state and execute the entire leasing process, including electronic signatures, in one stop. “A great thing about RentCafe is having a Web interface that makes it really easy for prospects to see our available apartments, review floor plans, and complete the leasing process,” said Jane Griffith, marketing manager for Tarragon’s multifamily division. “The photos present our properties very attractively, and our site managers love that RentCafe is intuitive, easy to use, and fully integrated with our Yardi Voyager® property management and accounting system. When prospects fill out guest cards online, we eliminate paper and redundancy because we don’t have to reenter a separate guest card into Voyager.”
Griffith added, “RentCafe also includes a resident portal. Once those prospects become residents, they like being able to pay rent online by credit card or checking account withdrawal, submit maintenance requests, and communicate with the office staff.” Since adopting RentCafe, Griffith said, “Our occupancy is way up. We’re consistently at 96 to 98%, and sometimes 100%. RentCafe has absolutely played a role in that.”
The mobile aspect of RentCafe gives Tarragon even more flexibility in its marketing and leasing. “There’s a marvelous RentCafe mobile app that’s designed for smartphones,” Griffith said. “I can be meeting with a prospect, pull out my phone and show any of our properties, and the prospect can apply for an apartment right from their own smartphone. It’s a tremendous advantage in terms of time savings, convenience and efficiency.”
“Social media and reputation management tools are included in RentCafe, which is a key element of our comprehensive marketing and resident services solution,” said Terri Dowen, senior vice president of sales for Yardi. “Tarragon and other property management companies leverage their residents’ social media networks to manage online ratings, increase their prospective audience and lower marketing costs.”
About Tarragon Property Services
Tarragon Property Services, based in Sumner, Wash., performs commercial and residential property management services for the real estate assets owned by Investco Financial Corporation. Investco’s residential income portfolio includes 15 operating properties with more than 2,500 units. Tarragon has earned numerous citations from SIOR, NAIOP and AIA. For more information, visit www.tarragon.com.
About Yardi
Now in its fourth decade, Yardi® is committed to the design, development and support of software for real estate investment management and property management. With the Yardi Multifamily Suite™, Yardi Commercial Suite™, Yardi Investment Suite™ and Yardi Orion™ Business Intelligence, the Yardi Voyager® platform is a complete real estate management solution. It includes operations, accounting and ancillary processes and services with portfolio-wide business intelligence and platform-wide mobility. Yardi is based in Santa Barbara, Calif., and serves clients worldwide from offices in North America, Asia, Australia, Europe and the Middle East. For more information, visit www.yardi.com.