SELF-GUIDED TOURS - Is anyone offering them? If so, I need feedback.

The good, the bad, the frustrating.
How do you manage it? How do you protect yourself from liability? How do you keep it organized?
Any and all info is welcome! If you feel more comfortable emailing the details, send to [email protected]. THANKS!

Self-guided tours?! For a museum this is a great idea. For property management it’s a stupid one.

Loved Rently when I did single family homes. I am sure prospects would love it just as much for apartments.
My current location is lower income - so not a chance!

I recently held one at a high rise building and we required everyone to check in at the office, we held photo ids and gave them a map and the locations available to tour along with pricing information. It seemed to go really well. My team loved the idea.

I have used Rently since 2014 and they are amazing. They do extensive checks and balances for liability, get credit card info and they have to upload their ID to get a code to enter an apartment. You do have to purchase the locks but it has increased leasing as people can tour on their own time. It records all of their information in the system for follow up. I have had zero issues with theft or damage. Highly recommend

Like it or not, it's coming! We should embrace change and welcome this modernization of our industry!

This is a good way to loose your job/career
Replaced by technology.
No matter how “great “ it may be for some the real deal is we will be replaced very very soon
There is already robocops
What happened to human damn contact ?

Kind of like self-check out at the grocery store too. Um...no.

Our company has been doing self guided tours since day one. We have 10,000 units in four states. Self guided tours work great and, as a company, we have a vacancy rate of 3% prospects enjoy the no pressure sales and ability to tour the apartment at their own pace. Also there is no down time in the office if someone has to go tour. The biggest issue I have is that people use the bathrooms in the vacant apartments.

For those of you saying NO, you are missing the point. This is about meeting the prospect where they are in the buying process, not replacing people with technology.
You know that feeling of craving a Chic-Fil-A sandwich for for lunch but it’s SUNDAY?!?! Well, the same thing happens when a prospect finds their perfect home online but it’s 8:00pm, on a Saturday night and your office is closed and maybe even closed Sunday. Lost time, lost excitement and guess what, you probably lost a lease.
INSTANT GRATIFICATION! We all want it! Heck, that is why we all use AMAZON and don’t shop at the mall, so tell me more about how important being face to face is for you in your buying decision?

In a recent panel I attended they addressed people’s concern about putting them out of work. One of the panelist mentioned how leasing agents jobs today are so different from 20-30 years ago before the computers and systems like yardi/onesite/entrata were introduced.
Our jobs onsite are more customer oriented versus just clerical.

This post makes me want to be back in marketing! It's a new trend....most shoppers want to be left alone, so perhaps a meet and greet in the leasing center to do a bit of pre-qualifying, take ID and such, then I envision creative ways to send prospect out; you could make a YouTube video that they could listen to as they head to model and/or vacant; scavenger hunt concept (placards placed along the tour path to guide them) - I'm jealous of all the marketing pro's out there trying to figure this out! According to HRC, 95% of consumer want to be left alone while shopping, unless and until they need an employee’s help. - when they return to leasing center, you close and help them through the process. Make it an option - moving is tough so many prospects may want you to come along to help! I love this trend for garden, high-rise, and single-family portfolio's that are spread out.

Interesting..it's bound to be the norm before we can imagine.

Following..I just asked this question to my Networking group but only 2 companies responded. I think it's the way of the future but security and accountability issues need ironed out...I've heard stories from one property that said some women don't feel secure knowing that someone else could be wandering in the same apt at the same time. Another said they find their leasing teams missing from the office for extended periods since they weren't needed for tours. Curious to hear how these are being addressed.

People buy from people is my theory.

I am a 40 year veteran in the Industry and teach and speak on our topics every day- if I wasn’t open to and part of and participating in the evolution of change, I’d be dust and left behind. I taught a Lease Like a Pro Class here in Chicago yesterday and spoke exactly to this ever changing process and like many in this post, my attendees expressed many of the same concerns and others embraced the process of change. Very exciting time in our industry - I think you’ll find that they’ll be a blending of both - remember it’s not a one size fits all procedure

We polled visitors to ApartmentRatings and 58% said they preferred self-guided tours. But when we look at the data on our SatisFacts side of things, the #1 driver for resident satisfaction is sense of community. Residents define sense of community as this: "Do I feel connected to where I live. It's a feeling that's driven by how well they are treated by the management team. All in all, connection isn't as important at the prospect stage, but it is highly important once that prospect becomes a resident. The job of leasing associate isn't endangered, it's just evolving.

Thank you for the positive feedback about Rently! We have seen quite a huge uptick in adopotion of our self-touring in MDU.

Some facts to highlight...

1. Self-touring is not new (it has been adopted by property managers since 2011)
2. Our self-touring is secure (we use at a miniumum 6 security checks to vet a prospect)
3. It is coming to multi-family (up to 14% of properties added to our system are apartments)
4. Self-showing does NOT require expensive hardware
5. 50% of self-tours happen outside of a M-F 9-5 schedule and typically supplement leasing office hours.

I am happy to answer any questions here or at the upcoming NAA conference.

We are having great success with self-tour at our Centre Court property in Louisville and plan to expand it to a lot more of our properties soon. The important piece is that you give your prospects an option for guided vs. self-guided and that you still have built in point for your team to interact with your prospects. We are using Power Pro for the backend technology and are seeing very positive feedback from our satisfaction surveys

Eric Ray

what company are you with? Is it multi family? I am very interested in knowing more.

We piloted Tour24 at our property in Washington, DC. Been a great success. Our closing ratio about 30%, on par with standard tours. We found the experience sought after by older prospects who know what they want and need little hand holding. The work is in the front-end setting up tour path and romance copy about your spaced.

David

We have self-guided tours using a simple app developed in-house. It's hugely beneficial in terms of saving money and time and adding to our customer service. We have found that more and more people of all ages want to do almost everything possible digitally, on their own time, and without interacting with other people in-person. We still offer in-person guided tours during LIMITED hours -- when our "community specialists" are on-site anyway (mostly addressing the needs of current residents) -- but there's no need or demand for them to return in late afternoons, evenings, or weekends to give tours.