Do you remember the first person you ever leased to? Do you remember the first day in a leasing office? Most of us in this industry started out as a leasing professional and whether we were trained or not, have to remember the first day of leasing.
Don’t you remember learning (or figuring out) where to get keys, put UPS packages, decipher a make ready board and what was on your vacancy report?
Can’t you remember walking your vacant apartments or a model to see what they looked liked and describing them in your head so you could sell them to your prospects?
Good old days… Fun times… Right??

I recently visited one of our leasing offices and one of our Leasing Specialist was experiencing some of the same things mentioned above. This person was beyond excited. I watched as they described apartments on the phone and worked with prospects in the office. You could tell this person enjoyed what they were doing and it showed as they got their first lease. The excitement was contagious. Then there was that little happy dance behind close doors!
It made me wonder… Whether it is our first lease or 100th lease, do we still do a little happy dance? Do we still get the “Wow, I can do it!” feeling? Shouldn’t our prospects, colleagues and managers see we are excited to get those leases?

When we are often times beginning leasing at a community and determining what marketing has been implemented to this point to know what direction we would like to go, we always make sure to touch on the topic of resident referral.  Resident referral is a great place to start for any community looking to bolster their marketing initiative, because the marketing is done in-house and there is no sort of “gate keeper” HR department heads to get through, such as with preferred employer companies.  Whatever the monetary amount that is offered to residents for referring their friends and family, this number needs to be constantly ingrained in the residents mind.  In addition, the monetary amount offered should be presented as a tiered system in that with each referral, a resident receives a bump up from the previous referral.  In doing so the resident will continue to refer potential residents in order to receive the next level incentive.  Many residents don’t understand that you really do get money for something as simple as referring a friend until they receive that first discount off of their rent, or that first check in their hand.  If your community is looking for a way to take your resident referral to the next level, then RentMineOnline may be a great addition to your property.

RentMineOnline is essentially a resident referral powerhouse that allows a community to expand the realm and current capacity of their resident referral program exponentially.  How they are able to do so is that RentMineOnline accesses the social media realm for referrals by having residents voluntarily sign up through their website, creating a RentMineOnline account, which in turn allows RentMineOnline to begin the referral process through the residents social pages (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), or through their email contacts.  Therefore, as a resident, if someone views a referral by RentMineOnline on my Facebook profile, which I have allowed to be posted, and decides to live at my community, I will receive a referral bonus without even physically telling that individual to join my community!  It’s that easy.  In addition, there is typically an incentive offered in-house by the on-site management, in that if I am one of the first X number of individuals to participate in the referral, then I could also win a participation prize offered by the property (i.e., $10 Starbucks Card; $10 Amazon.com Card; etc.).  RentMineOnline has taken the simple concept of resident referral and made it easier, as well as made it more interactive for the residents.

I personally have not only used RentMineOnline’s services at my current apartment community as a resident, but have also referred their services to communities that we have worked with around the nation.  It is a great concept that allows properties to potentially see a significant influx of qualified traffic and enables a community to be engaged with their residents on a more advanced level.

Here is a great write-up about RentMineOnline in Multifamily Executive with CEO Ed Spiegel.

In the apartment industry it is every single person’s duty, from the apartment developers all the way to the maintenance workers, to figure out what the renters want.  In addition once these needs are identified, it is equally as important, if not more important to be able to supply renters with as many of these wishes to ensure the property of succeeds.

Apartment living is overall a very transient lifestyle and very rarely will you meet someone that has lived in the same apartment for a large number of years.  People move for all sorts of reasons, whether it’s just for a change a scenery, a job relocation, or in order to cut back on some costs, individuals that live in apartments will always move more than your typical house dwellers.

Ultimately apartment employees do not want residents to move, because that leads to numerous amounts of vacant apartments, which causes lack of income coming in. Therefore, the million dollar question to answer becomes ”What is it that renters want?”

Apartments.com conducts a survey a few times a year to get inside the mind of the average apartment renter to figure out what exactly it is that people are looking for.  Is it location that is of utmost importance?  Are there certain amenities that some people must have?  Do prospects put more weight on having larger floor plans, or better views?

The results of the survey are always interesting to analyze, because they will change depending upon the time of the year.  The most recent survey comes from February of 2011 and gives some great insight into what renters are looking for right now.  Here are some highlights from the 1,800 individuals polled:

-28.8% were moving to relocate for employment opportunities
-20.3% of those that previously owned a home are moving, because renting is more affordable
-26.3% are searching 1-2 months in advance of their desired move-in date
-48.3% said cost was the most important search criteria
-The top three resources people were using to search for their apartment are all online resources

Take a look at the complete results of the survey and see if there are any surprises you find.  What’s the main reason that you either have individuals moving to your community, or moving out of your community?