In today’s digital age, online reputation plays a crucial role in the success of property management companies. Positive reviews attract new residents and instill trust and confidence in services. At a recent industry conference, we learned from standout property management company (and valued Yardi client) The Bozzuto Group what strategies and insights are working for them. Let’s explore how to manage online reputation to boost reviews and gain efficiencies effectively. User give rating to service experience on online application for Customer review satisfaction feedback survey concept. The importance of online reputation is essential in the property management industry. Customer sentiment and experience surveys are heavily relied on to make informed decisions. Data from diverse sources impact reviews. Use more than just Google as a source of information and review data. Kelley Shannon, Senior Vice President, Marketing and Customer Engagement for The Bozzuto Group, says: “You’re only as good as the lowest performing property.” With lower scores in metrics of customer satisfaction and loyalty, reputation can be ruined. Take the time to monitor and respond to reviews on platforms and social media channels. “If they are taking the time to write, you should take the time to respond,” she added. Give teams a goal of ten reviews per month, and in more prominent properties, aim for 15 on various platforms. Set up notifications and promptly respond to both positive and negative feedback. Addressing concerns, resolving issues and showcasing a commitment to customer satisfaction will lead to happier residents and community.  If reviews are negative, look at the positives and aim to keep them going. Communication, friendliness, cleanliness, amenities and availabilities are all part of getting stellar reviews. If vendors or a part of the property management team lives on campus, have them go online and...

Want to know how to score more lease renewals? Part of your branding, resident culture, is key in transforming residents into long-term community members. The tips below will help you highlight resident culture as an asset. What is resident culture? Resident culture is part of your multifamily branding efforts. Branding is a broad umbrella that applies to your marketing, company identity, and employee profiles. Culture is the aerial view of each communities’ values, customs, and interests. Each community within a large portfolio may have a unique culture. Concepts within community culture align with the renter profile for each location. Resident culture in action Perhaps many renters at a property are young professionals employed by local tech companies. You may choose to highlight tech integration into that culture: use submetering and home automation to improve utility efficiency, organize community outings to local tech events, or host movie nights featuring “geek” protagonists. Perhaps pet-owners drive revenue in your community.  *Post scheduled.* You can integrate pet care into your culture by hosting several pet-friendly events throughout the year. Consider field days with pet competitions or select days where dogs are welcomed at the pool. You can also invite pet specialists onto your property, like photographers and trainers, and negotiate discounted rates for residents. The concepts that represent your residents’ values, customs, and interests form the foundations of your culture. Articulate your culture when residents first arrive and throughout their stay to promote a higher lease renewal rate. Warm welcome, long stay Host Events for New Residents At least every quarter, host an event for new residents. This provides them with an opportunity to shake off the new kid jitters and forge friendships. Strong friendships promote resident retention. Make Yourself Available Let residents know that your team is...

As a property management software provider with tons of solutions at hand, we’re proud to say that there are few property issues that technology can’t address. While tech is a terrific way to enhance the renter experience, zeros and ones have their limits. Some important components of community building require the human touch. Your ability to personalize the community experience links directly to resident retention and a healthy bottom line. Yardi client Pegasus Residential demonstrates how to personalize a memorable property experience to promote retention and drive revenue. It Starts with Your Reputation A smooth user experience, great photos and easy leasing options are a necessity in today’s online marketplace. But poor reviews and a bad reputation will quickly defeat your best efforts. Online reviews and reputation “will make or break a community and single-handedly increase traffic and occupancy,” says Wendy Dorchester, Pegasus Residential’s vice president of operations. Reputation management is an essential part of your community’s success. There are services to manage online reviews. Your in-house team can catch resident concerns before they make it online. They can also influence your reputation in the offline community. Encourage attentiveness and responsiveness amongst your leasing team, advises Dorchester. Online surveys are another good way to intercept concerns before they make it online or into the rumor mill. Build Up Your Image According to online technology news source TechCrunch, more than 90 percent of apartment hunters begin their search online. Few sign a sight-unseen rider, which means most will visit your property before committing to the lease. Curb appeal and staff representation matter. Stay on top of landscaping and building maintenance. “A community’s curb appeal is critical, too, as a prospective resident’s first impression of a community upon visiting has a huge impact,” says Dorchester. She...

The winter months signal a slow down throughout the multifamily industry. For marketers and site staff, however, the slow season is a great opportunity to get ahead for the spring. Below are 9 tips for a productive winter that will jumpstart your spring. Marketing Refresh Collaborate with sales and operations. The slow season is the perfect time for marketers to strategize with other departments. Assure that your spring goals have the budget to support them. Share insights that you’ve received from residents’ surveys, prospect feedback, and other sources that may influence changes at the properties. Now is the time to mention any needed site updates or value-add software for residents and staff. Maintain your online presence. All leases come to an end. When they do, you want to be on the forefront of prospects’ minds. Even if you dial back on spend, maintain a strong presence on your highest quality lead sources. Yardi RentCafe makes it easy to manage your marketing spend while optimizing your exposure. Get a head start on your spring campaigns. The early bird gets the worm, so don’t wait until the snow melts to plan your local campaigns. Use the quiet times in the office to brainstorm new ideas. Create a content calendar for the blog and social media. Impromptu posting is a great way to take advantage of relevant, timely material. Content calendars, however, ensure that you always have a plan for keeping your social media up-to-date. RENTCafé makes it easy to create and schedule posts to your blog and social media platforms. Resident Retention Build loyalty with residents. With fewer prospects consuming your time, take this opportunity to pamper your existing residents and build loyalty. Issue resident surveys to understand what residents love about your property—and what can...

If you are a condominium property manager, every day you work towards maintaining your properties to make them desirable places to live, while keeping operations running smoothly. Further, you must ensure the properties meet the expectations of owners and condo corporations. In competitive markets such as Toronto and Vancouver, this is especially key. According to the experts, the lack of single-family residential unit supply in the current Canadian market is expected to create opportunities for condo markets to absorb excess demand. Condo demand is forecast to increase in Toronto and Vancouver, due to factors including urban migration and the interest of foreign real estate investors.  In addition, rising house prices, which have reached 4.6 times the national average household income, further powers the condo market. Given the high demand and potential growth in this industry, it is crucial to stand out as a property manager. Following are some tips to help you attract and retain condo corporations and at the same time reduce your overhead costs and streamline your operations. Enhance Your Digital Presence It all starts with branding. In today’s world, it is imperative to have a digital presence in order to establish credibility of your business and to attract prospective customers. When it comes to your property management brand, curb appeal matters. Critical first impressions often happen online. Creating a beautiful property website with rich, easy-to-use features including an owner portal will further heighten your brand value and make you a more valued property management service provider. Creating a Community Due to the growth in demand in the condo property market, creating, promoting and maintaining a strong sense of community is crucial to stand out as a property manager. Of course, property appeal goes beyond landscaping and renovations. Today’s owners are looking...

As building permits increase this year and healthy competition is restored, multifamily must revisit resident retention practices. Luxury amenities, home automation technology, and quarterly vacation giveaways are unsustainable: amenities and technology quickly become outdated, requiring costly upgrades, and it’s hard to find room in the budget for grandiose vacation packages. What feature can increase tenant retention over the long term without significantly raising costs? Greenery. A series of studies suggests that renters can feel better about their communities and happier with themselves through strategic landscaping. According to a study released by Kansas State University, views of nature contribute to resident satisfaction by making residents feel happier and healthier. The lush landscaping and interactive green spaces in such residences enhance tenants’ sense of health and well-being by reducing stress and anxiety, invigorating the senses, and ameliorating urban harshness. The beneficial effects of nature apply to tenants of all ages. In “Visual Landscapes and Psychological Wellbeing ” by R.S. Ulrich, green spaces demonstrably improved students’  focus, productivity and confidence before taking tests. Greenery also decreased students’ stress levels. Housing that can offer students better academic performance and stress mitigation will be an easy sell in a competitive market. Mental Health and Function by University of Washington departments of Urban Forestry and Urban Greening Research compared seniors living in apartments with greenery to seniors without access to nature. Overall, seniors preferred greener communities. Seniors living near greenery used such spaces for recreation, exercise, and social interaction. As a result, they felt that green spaces contributed positively to their well-being, happiness, and vitality. Seniors revealed a positive correlation between greenery and a diminished sense of loneliness, fewer cases of depression, and lower mortality rates. Greenery can also improve resident retention by promoting peace between neighbors. Mental Health and...

The warm weather months are kind to leasing agents. Residents don’t need much incentive to come to the outdoor community parties. The colder months, however, can bring the fun of an active community to a grinding halt. How and where can onsite staff host resident events during the colder months? We’ve got four fun community event ideas that are indoors, affordable, and sure to build a sense of community and belonging for your residents. Lease renewals, anyone? Local Gym During the winter, many people are planning or executing their New Year’s fitness resolutions. Local gyms are eager to recruit new members and you’re eager to find an affordable, fun place to host a party. Pick the best equipped gym near your community and let your interests combine! Work up a deal with your local gym: request free guest passes (which most gyms offer anyway) and you’ll supply their potential, future members. Get residents together for games of basketball, racquetball, or popular Zumba and yoga classes. The more that the gym has to offer, the more opportunities your residents have to bond and maintain their New Year’s resolutions. The best part: residents will likely join the gym and find workout buddies amongst neighbors, adding two more reasons for them to love your community. Aquatic Center Who says you can’t swim in winter? Check out your local aquatic center, often hosted by the county. Many centers, especially those constructed within the last decade, have indoor pools, heated indoor pools, saunas and hot tubs. Space rentals are often quite affordable, especially in the winter when business is slow. All that is left for you to do is supply a few light snacks (because no one wants to swim on a full stomach). Dave and Busters D&B offers...

For most property management companies, how well resident turnover is managed is a huge part of the profit picture. There’s no more critical component in managing turnover than simply and effectively anticipating those turns. Apartment buildings anticipate a 50 to 60 percent renewal rate, says Trudy von Keudell, property manager at Coast at Lakeshore East in Chicago. If 30 leases are up for renewal at the end of June, it’s not uncommon for 15 of those to renew and an equal number to not renew. Those 15 residents may be buying a home or being transferred by their employer, or leaving for some reason having nothing to do with the building. “So you have to anticipate resident turnover,” she says. “If you’re not, you’re not being realistic.” Anticipation is vital because best practices in managing turnover start before residents move out, says Shailene Casio-Smith, vice president of Austin, Tex.-based residential property management company FirstService Residential Realty. The property shouldn’t experience a mass exodus in one month or in the middle of its lowest leasing season. Ensuring it doesn’t “helps manage the property’s turn costs, so there’s not a spike in expenses, or a dip in NOI,” she says. “A lot of your lease optimizer software programs manage that for you.” Many property managers find it helps to do as much pre-planning as possible, so they’re ready to hit the ground running when a current resident departs. “We try to get the client to allow us to do a pre-departure inspection so we understand the full scope of work we have to do,” says Dylan Pichulik, CEO of New York City-based XL Real Property Management, which manages individual apartments in small buildings for absentee owners. “That way we can line up all the necessary equipment,...

Homeownership across the U.S. continued to decline 40 basis points in the second quarter of 2013, creating a favorable context for multifamily to thrive. Rental demand remains strong with occupancy gains and rent growth occurring in every major metro around the country. Annual rent growth across the U.S. is currently averaging 3.4 percent, according to research data from Jones Lang LaSalle. Driven by an improving job market as well as significant population growth recorded within two key renter demographics (eco-boomers and empty nesters), both multifamily occupancy and rents have climbed well above their 10-year averages, JLL research shows. Richmond, Portland, Nashville, Dallas-Ft. Worth and the Inland Empire have seen the largest increase in rentership over the last 12 months with more than 4.0 percent of households migrating away from home-ownership. All signs seem to point out to a rebounding rental market, yet the road to successful renting is not always smooth. Ensuring an uninterrupted cash flow falls almost entirely on property managers and their ability to retain quality tenants. A recent report from J Turner Research, a leading marketing research firm exclusively serving the multifamily industry, reveals that three out of top five complaints are directly related to customer service as delivered by the on-site management teams and maintenance technicians. The top 10 multifamily apartment resident complaints resulted from J Turner’s survey are: Rental rates Poor grounds / common area upkeep Disorganized staff / lack of communication with staff Quality of response to maintenance requests Overall customer service of management staff Quality of parking / parking availability Concerns over security / safety / lighting Lack of upgraded amenities Pets not on leash / poor pet waste removal General lack of preventative maintenance   The report was based on the analysis of 10,000 customer satisfaction...

Hanging on to the multifamily residents you have is always high on the priority list of property managers. Turning apartments is nearly always a revenue loss, and keeping the tenants you have reduces workload for everyone on the site staff. Getting creative with retention strategies is a challenge for property managers, who must constantly update their techniques to keep tenants happy and 30-day notices at bay. Recent survey results indicate that this is more challenging than ever – in March, a multifamily survey found that 58.5 percent of renters said they “definitely” or “probably” would renew their leases, a drop of more than 6 percentage points from a previous survey. So how to best combat renter wanderlust? We went digging for some creative retention offerings from property management professionals. Here are some of the strategies they’re employing: –Give them free stuff, and they will stay. Some multifamily firms are focusing on lifestyle utilities, like cable television and high-speed Internet service, and offering to pay for those services for the duration or the portion of a residents’ renewed lease, usually in the form of a rent credit. The resident still maintains the responsibility of procuring and managing their own services, but the property management firm gives them a $25-$75 discount on rent each month. –Recognizing the cost of living. Properties in regions where the apartment vacancy rate is low can capitalize on the situation by simply keeping rents the same for the coming year. While the offer doesn’t succeed in maximizing income, it does reduce turn costs and marketing expenses. Renters are less likely to go out and hunt for a home and compete with others for leases if they can stay on at the budgeted price they’re used to. –Upgrading the unit. If a...