I attended “NOI Enhancing Nuggets” at this year’s Apartmentalize Conference, and it offered several eye-opening insights into how prospects and residents react to negative experiences with our property management team, as well as possibilities for saving those struggling relationships.

An Initial Bad Impression is Extremely Hard to Turn Around

Securing a new lease is hard enough as it is, and we would assume a bad initial first impression of the community is going to impact their decision to lease with us, but what if a prospect’s initial impression is just “average”?  One might expect that a bad first impression would drastically reduce the chance you have at securing that new lease, but amazingly, an average first impression also had disastrous results, with only a 12% success rate in winning a new lease.  Simply being average doesn’t cut it, especially when compared to excellent first impressions, which resulted in a 43% success rate.

That Bad First Impression Applies to Bad Move-In’s, As Well

In a similar vein, of those prospects (now residents) who moved in but were dissatisfied with their move-in experience, only 27% ultimately became satisfied by the end of their lease.  In other words, once the relationship begins on the wrong foot, it is highly unlikely that a community can recover that relationship. 

The biggest challenge is that someone new to the community has no prior history with the community, which makes it hard to give the benefit of the doubt.  If they have been a great resident for 3 years and something goes awry, they still have a long history to look back to in order to decide whether that flub was an anomaly or the norm, but with a new prospect or new resident, all their concerns and fears are allowed to run rampant. 

Resolving Outstanding Issues Can Still Result in a Positive Experience For New Residents

For residents who had a perfect move-in, 77% rated their experience as “Excellent”.  Unfortunately, nearly half of new move-ins reported having an issue upon move-in.   That said, 85% of new residents still had a positive experience with their move IF their issue was resolved within 7 days.  Although one should never settle for a subpar move-in experience, it is good to know that most residents will give us a second chance, but we have to take it, and take it FAST!  Time is of the essence here, and as mentioned above, if the resident is left with a dissatisfied move-in experience after those first 7 days, there is a very good chance they will not become satisfied later.

Complaints of Office Hours a Concern

With the rise in online shopping comes the rise of package management concerns on-site, and that pain is felt by residents when they are unable to make it to the office before it is closed, if the community doesn’t have an alternate package management solution.  Package management solutions, or adjusting office hours to manage this package deluge is critical.

What Data Point Correlates Most With Renewals?

The on-site staff!  When residents indicated they “feel appreciated as a resident”, that was the biggest sign they will renew. 

They Said They Were Going to Buy a House?  Don’t Give Up Yet!

Amazingly, 44% of people who say they are going to get a house within 6 months end up renewing!