How Revenue IQ Apartment Unit Pricing Works

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Revenue IQ revenue management software (formerly RENTmaximizer) helps apartment owners and managers efficiently review and set options for pricing their rental units. Apartment communities that use Revenue IQ have full and independent control of the Revenue IQ settings and their pricing decisions.

 

Apartment communities are free to set different pricing and offer lease concessions and other incentives even while using the software. Revenue IQ bases pricing recommendations on factors such as supply, demand, the publicly advertised rent (โ€œasking rentsโ€) of comparable units, and other optional factors that each apartment community decides whether and when to use. Revenue IQ essentially analyzes the factors that property managers have traditionally analyzed but does so more accurately and more efficiently, which helps save time and leads to smarter decisions.

Adjusting day-to-day pricing upward, downward, or not at all.

Each day, a rent rate is generated for every rental unit at an apartment community that uses Revenue IQ. This rent rate might be higher, lower, or the same as the previous dayโ€™s rent. There are four basic data elements (or โ€œtrendsโ€) in Revenue IQ that help landlords decide when to adjust the price.

  1. Unit availability (supply)
  2. Interest from prospective renters (demand)
  3. New leases generated (demand)
  4. Publicly available asking rents for comparable rental units in the area

Trends 1, 2, and 3 are based solely on the apartment communityโ€™s own information. Trend 4 consists solely of publicly available asking rents. If a majority of these trends are moving in the same direction, Revenue IQ will recommend increasing or decreasing the asking rent. If not, Revenue IQ will recommend leaving the current pricing unchanged.

The โ€œhealthโ€ of a property is based on goals set by each apartment communityโ€”such as desired levels of occupancy, unit availability, and the like. After analyzing the propertyโ€™s trend data, Revenue IQ helps determine how much the potential asking rent should move up or down (if at all) based on the health of the property. This feature is meant to ensure that incremental pricing adjustments are aligned with the apartment communityโ€™s individual goals. Over the past five years across all properties, Revenue IQ has recommended increases about 17% of the time, recommended decreases about 11% of the time, and recommended no change about 72% of the time.

Important factors such as move-in dates, lease lengths, etc.

In addition to the daily rate adjustments, Revenue IQ calculates a range of prices from which consumers can choose. These prices are based on other important factors selected by the apartment community, such as move-in date options, lease length, existing lease expiration dates, and the like. Examples:

  • Giving prospective renters the option of choosing a longer lease for a lower price (longer leases are often less costly than shorter ones due to lower vacancy risk, turnover costs, etc.).
  • Discounting units that have been unrented for an extended time.

Each apartment community has the sole discretion to decide if and when to use these optional components. Revenue IQ ensures that configuration settings and decisions are kept strictly confidential and are not shared between communities.