Apartment Vacancies Are Near Historic Highs

Below is the link to the article/report on Thomson Reuters. We all know and are experiencing the effects of the "economic crisis."

How have your properties faced these same scenarios?

Have your occupancies been affected negatively, or the complete opposite?

Have your properties had to result to "extreme measures?"

Share a situation or resolution for others that ended in a positive result.


www.reuters.com/article/rbssEnvironmenta...dUSN0733020120090708

Considering this is the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression what do people expect???!!!!

How does an apartment building decide to raise or lower rent prices? What steps need to be taken to arrive at such a decision and who participates? How does this vary between apartment buildings of different size and apartment management companies of different size? What resources do people use to make those determinations?

Our apartment communities all started out with very low occupancy due to the poor economy. We focused on buying properties in distress because of low occupancy. Our goal was to increase occupancy which would naturally raise each property's value, and we have so far been successful. Because of this I believe the key is to find new ways to market your apartments.

We have found that many apartments have fallen behind in the way they advertise, collect current and potential tenant information (this helps with marketing), and marketing. Many apartments rely on newspapers, other print advertising, and major online companies such as rent.com and apartmentfinder.com.

Be creative, use information collected from tenants and potential tenants to help you get rid of costly ineffective advertising and increase spending on new innovative ads.

As time progresses so does the buying behavior of potential tenants. It used to be that people would use apartment magazines and newspapers to find a place to live, then they would physically visit each property before they made a buying decision. Today, the trend is rapidly changing and properties that do not keep up with this trend, are following behind. What I mean is people now start their search on the internet, and if you can capture their interest they might even make a buying decision right then and there, sitting at their computer chair. We have seen in the past year 20 sight unseen leases, and hundreds of sight unseen rental applications.

It all has to do with how and where you market your apartment. So in summary, I encourage everyone to research the buying habits of your submarket, reduce spending on low ROI ads and increase spending on new advertising and marketing ideas.

I hope this helps,

Sergio Navarrete
Apartment Marketing Solutions