If you are like me, when you first read the words paired together for the title of this blog, you probably did a double take as the word after “speed” was not “dating.”  Also if you are just like me, the combination of these two words paired together made you click on, in this case, the blog, while in my case, it was the Business Insider link on their page that caught my attention.  Speed roommating is a concept that I had only vaguely heard of, but upon reading the attached article, it definitely struck me as a potential win-win scenario from a marketing standpoint and from a resident event standpoint.

Every time we are requested to assist with leasing at a community, it is always due to an overabundance of vacant apartments with a majority of those apartments usually being one floor plan size.  More times than not the apartment floor plan that is usually the tougher sell are the two and three bedroom apartments.  Why is this?  Depending upon the community the main reason two and three bedroom apartments are typically harder to move is that they are always the most expensive.  Couples will be much more inclined to down size into a one bedroom apartment, because it is the more economical choice.  Those singles looking to move into an apartment usually have no need for all the additional space, but would probably love being able to find a great match to split living costs with.  Even at a student community it may be a challenge to fill up all two, or three bedroom floor plans, because there are guaranteed to be a large amount of people that come in just looking for one bedroom of an apartment and ultimately have to be roommate matched.

With these scenarios and many more, speed roommating could potentially be a huge boost in filling up those hard to lease extra bedrooms of a multi-bedroom apartment.  Speed roommating is quite similar to speed dating, except that it is somewhat more casual.  As opposed to a multi-stop table setup, speed roommating is more of a mingling environment where everyone is encouraged to meet with as many people as possible for as long a time as desired and each person has a name tag to designate if they ”have a room, or need a room.”

I feel that this could be a great idea to host at a community clubhouse, or at a local bar/restaurant in town, and would not only provide a great service to current residents, but would also be a great form of outreach for the community name.  The article lists the pros and cons of speed roommating and in my opinion, the pros surely outweigh the cons from a potential leasing opportunity standpoint.

It’s often difficult to run some sort of incentive for incoming prospects without having current residents feeling like they were left out, or upset that they are not able to reap the benefits of leasing an apartment now.  It is almost guaranteed to happen where a new prospect will move in who received a move-in concession, they will talk to their neighbor about what great deal they took advantage of and the current resident will probably be the first person at your leasing door the next day trying to demand they receive the deal.  Often times it is difficult to explain to residents how specials change and that they are not currently eligible for the move-in special, because they already live at the community!

With this being said there is in fact a great option that can appeal to both your incoming prospects as well as your current residents.  Have a community raffle!  Now this isn’t just another raffle where people come to the office and buy tickets to be entered into the drawing.  The idea is for the community to be able to benefit from this raffle from both prospects and residents.  Lauren Boston from NAA wrote an article in the most recent issue of Units magazine about how Nancy Wittenberg, owner of Claridge Apartments, implemented this concept at her Houston based property and it was a great success!  Here’s how it can work:

-Everyone person, both prospect and current resident, is eligible to participate in the raffle

-The raffle needs to run at least a one to two month duration, but by all means can be offered over a longer period of time

-The raffle prize can be anything, but make it something worthwhile that doesn’t necessarily require the person that wins to be living at the community (i.e. TV; vacation; shopping card; etc.)

-Incoming prospects receive one ticket to be entered in the raffle just for taking a tour during the specified time

-Incoming prospects that apply receive two or three tickets, depending upon the lease length term.  My recommendation would be to probably have a stipulation that the person must be approved to receive the additional tickets.  This would be best in order to avoid a huge spike in applicants, but also a huge spike in potential cancellations and rejections.

-Current residents are eligible to receive one ticket for rent paid on time.  This is why I would say the contest should at least go for a duration of two months to enable current residents to get potentially a minimum of two tickets.  This contest could go a much longer length, which would be great if you are a community that is looking for a little boost in your percentage of residents potentially paying rent on time for a few months.

-This raffle could also be a great boost to your resident referral in that current residents could also receive a ticket if they referred anyone during the allotted time period that filled out an application

As you can see there is quite a bit of potential from not only an increased traffic standpoint, but also an increase in rent paid on time from this simple raffle idea.  In addition running a promotion such as this can also increase marketing visibility, because this promotion can be advertised everywhere:  social media outlets; flyers to businesses; resident referral flyers to your residents; new move-in packets for residents.  This promotion would be great for a community looking to get their Facebook Page going as another stipulation of the entry could be that each individual, both prospect and resident, must like the Facebook Page to be officially eligible.

We have implemented this concept at numerous properties and it has always been a hit.  It may end up bringing in quite the increase in traffic, but after all, that is a great problem to have!