Occupancy?

Well the economy is picking up and our busy season is in full swing, so how is your occupancy doing?

Is it typical for this time of year? Have you rebounded from the downturn last year? What concessions are you offering, if any? Are you doing any retention events?

I have a conventional 83 unit B property with an indoor pool but no washer/dryer hookups.

I am 100% occupied with one notice that is pre-leased for market rate.

I have difficulty getting residents to come to retention events, so I'm going to do something a little more hands off this time. I'll decorate our bulletin board like a giant thank you card, and have a raffle of some sort.

Our Occupancy is great. We are in a college town so this is definately our busy season as well. I am fully leased up and will remain so through October at this point! Super excited about that! Last year, we were at 99% occupied after our busy season but our numbers kept steady between 95%-98% througout the year. I'm at a conventional C property with lack of amenities... We don't even have a laundry room but we remain competitive thanks to reasonable rent pricing and great customer service.

We have the same problem with getting residents to come out for our retention events. We had a Pizza Party (what college kids doesn't love Pizza) and only had about 15 people show up... We are having a Back to School BBQ in August as well. For July, I'm going to do something a little different... I think I'm going to go to the residents instead of expecting them to come to me... I might deliver Muffins in the morning to the residents w/ coffee and do a day of washing cars as well... It gets me out of the office and it's fun! Anyone else have any great off the wall Ideas?

Our Occupancy is great. We are in a college town so this is definately our busy season as well. I am fully leased up and will remain so through October at this point! Super excited about that! Last year, we were at 99% occupied after our busy season but our numbers kept steady between 95%-98% througout the year. I'm at a conventional C property with lack of amenities... We don't even have a laundry room but we remain competitive thanks to reasonable rent pricing and great customer service.

We have the same problem with getting residents to come out for our retention events. We had a Pizza Party (what college kids doesn't love Pizza) and only had about 15 people show up... We are having a Back to School BBQ in August as well. For July, I'm going to do something a little different... I think I'm going to go to the residents instead of expecting them to come to me... I might deliver Muffins in the morning to the residents w/ coffee and do a day of washing cars as well... It gets me out of the office and it's fun! Anyone else have any great off the wall Ideas?

I did the car wash thing last year and it was a huge hit! Who wouldn't want to see their landlord wash their car? LOL.

I was exhausted but that's OK because I needed the exercise anyway. :silly:

I might consider a videogame tournament; if you have one that has an online aspect, you can challenge another property for bragging rights; or better, have a $5 entry fee, put those funds together in a pot and have the winner take all. If you have 100 residents participating at $5 per head, that's a $500 pot! If you challenge another property that also has 100 residents participating, the pot is now $1000!

Run it round robin style (like they run pro or college sports).

Pretty cool idea! So, basically they sign up in the office for the tournament and then they play on their systems at home?!? I'm not a big gamer but I'm curious about this, I have a lot of college kids that live here and this might be something fun for them!

Can you give me some details? I'm not very knowledgable about gaming or how it really works...

Appreciate it!

I have seen this at properties that had a clubhouse with a tv system in place. They either rented a game system or had a resident provide theirs to use for it. In this case, they sent out a survey as to what games to play. If there are families, I would limit it to sports type games (but that is just me); you could choose the games to coincide with reality (i.e.; if the world series is coming up, you could choose the MLB games, if it is March Madness, you could choose the NCAA basketball games). If you have a senior community, you could get a Wii system and do the bowling or the golf kind of games. The possibiliies are there......