Nicholas Clayton's profile| Property Management | Resident Retention

What are some best ways you’ve found to gain leads? Obviously, low pricing, but how about for sites with top market rates (or lease ups). Tips / Tricks?

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Sarah Dundee Following

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Who has leased upscale apartments….near train tracks??
We have a few units just about 500 feet from the tracks. It can be quite noisy day and night! We’ve...

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Matthew C Starrett

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Guest Insider I worked at a luxury community right next to the tracks. My company no longer owns the property but look up lansdalestationapartments.com.
We leaned into the location. Commuting, walk ability and overall atmosphere when we’re there. We were consisting 96% or higher occupied.

Guest Insider You can purchase sound curtains to hang over the windows. They aren’t cheap and don’t look pretty, but do a great job of blocking outside noise.

Guest Insider Emphasize the quality of your construction.

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Brent Williams

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Guest Insider Yardi offers Screening, ID Verification and Verification of Income

Guest Insider On-Site! And you can set the screening parameters exactly how you’d like, for example no evictions ever or no evictions in past 5 years, etc

Guest Insider Approve Shield

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???? MARKETING QUESTION ????I’m managing a super beautiful new property. We are a good half mile off the main road down a winding roadway (hidden basically). The city will not allow signage or flags on that main busy road. Anyone dealt with something like this?? Aside from digital, any ideas how we might be able to enhance traffic and have people find us?? Any creative ideas are helpful! Thank you!

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Guest Insider Building partnerships with the major businesses in the area has always been helpful. They have always let us leave our rack cards or collateral in their store fronts. Utilizing your PEP programs and cross promoting that way

Heather Blume What about focusing on the fact it can't be seen from the road? It tucked in and that implies it being serene without directly saying so. It's a hidden wonderland of a property that is a iykyk type of thing. "Turn here - IYKYK where to find happiness ( or whatever intangible ethereal thing you think will attract people in your market)" and then in smaller print the name of the apts.

Gerry Hunt Use you social media wisely. 89% of folks looking for a new apartment check them out of Social Media BEFORRE casting the property! Have direction in the about section. Post 3 times a wee at the light time for your area.

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TIPS TO LEASE FUNKY LAYOUTS We have a few 2BRs with strange shaped bedrooms (weird angles). Any good tips for leasing strange shaped apartments without reducing price?? Thank you!!

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Guest Insider Blue tape off the floor of a layout. I also push the fact that they’ll be in a unique floorplan that NO ONE ELSE has! You’d be shocked at how people want something that no one else has. We had a few floorplans that were one of a kind and these helped.

Guest Insider Depends on what part of the home is as I like to call it UNIQUE . We have a property that has fillers - those home with blunt angles that make it difficult for some to see how they will arrange their furniture, etc. I had my team use masking tape and outline a full size bed and a queen size bed as well as outline the measurements of a standard tall chest of drawers because that is about all that can fit in that bedroom. We then purchased items for the bathroom - hand soap lotion w/trey, hand and bath towels, body brush, fancy milled soaps, bath mat, long window curtains vs shower curtain (we hung them high so it looked like our model shower), kitchen items such as pasta bins (we put pasta inside of them, too!) place setting for 3 on the island, and a nice kitchen rug, and kitchen towels. As part of a closing tool, we tell the prospect they get to keep all of the items in the home as a look and lease special.

Guest Insider I would say they have been deigned like a architect with a fun, unique space in mind. Now people are buying space saving furniture…….
Make a day bed/couch modern space model. New York style space, I’d have fun with it. Ask a furniture rental company to market them in exchange for free model furniture…

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What’s your secret to getting people to HARD HAT TOUR?New lease-up in Austin.
Units only 50% done. No clubhouse. Ownership want’s us hard...

Kara Rice

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Amanda Buyalos Offer a chance to win a gift card, selling the opportunity for being “the first” to see the new property, inviting city leaders and Chambers of Commerce out to tour and post these tours on social media. Have a wine and cheese reception afterwards.

Jason Capps I’ve done several lease ups, and find that people aren’t as excited about hard hat tours as they maybe used to. They almost inevitably want to view the finished product before making a decision. Additionally, not sure about Austin, but inspectors will put many limitations on touring during construction. It’s more headache than it’s worth.

Erik McKinster Get some creative hats... cowboy hardhats, horned viking, etc...

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Leasing Contests???? What sort of leasing contests do you do with your team? Looking for something competitive, but also that inspires teamwork.

Mya Estrada

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Yvonne Cisman Lots of great ideas! I’ve found that first you need to ask each team member what motivates them. If they have common motivators then do a team goal with team prize. If they are motivated by different things then do individual goals with prizes that match those motivators.

Guest Insider Tic Tac Dough was a lot of fun for me back in the day! Put all of the aged vacants on the chart and if someone leased one, they got and additional $50, 3 in a row received and extra $500.

Guest Insider Friendly competition makes for some fun. Double commissions on long standing vacants. Lease and move in all assigned hot sheet units by a certain date and pay an additional bonus. Lease up or low occupancy, set occupancy goals by a certain date and give tickets to Disneyland or something equivalent. Free day off for the entire team if they hit an occupancy goal. There are so many fun ideas that make for a friendly competition. Assign leasing agent with a maintenance person. If they achieve a perfect turn white glove ready without a workorder within 30 days of move-in give that team a bonus.
As a Regional Director if any of my leasing team achieves 8 approved leases in a week I'll send them lunch the following week. Frankly I would send them lunch every week if it meant securing leases and reducing vacancy loss. The value of a lease outways the cost of a lunch and showing your team a token of appreciation goes further.

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:::TIPS - MANAGING PEST CONTROL ON LARGE PROPERTY::: I’d love to hear how others out there manage their pest control. We are on a quarterly treatment schedule for all units. However, we still have numerous resident complaint pest issues on our 450 unit property (Florida - subtropical climate). We...

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Guest Insider I started at my property 3 years ago. Roach issues constantly. We spray inside every apartment every month, if they refuse, they are charged $65.00 fee. We also implemented a $3 charge monthly to every resident for this service. It has worked great for us.

Guest Insider I have weekly service.

Lori Agudo Monthly service. They are also not allowed to refuse treatment per their lease agreement so if they do it's a lease violation.

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Carpet Stain Tips??? We have common area hallway carpets that have some very deep stains. We’ve used a carpet cleaning machine and stain remover. Not working. Any special stain remove product that would get these deep long standing stains out??

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Guest Insider The stains may have penetrated the slab under the carpet and may be "weeping" back up into the carpet after cleaning. In that case, the slab would have to be sealed, which I have yet to figure out how to do, maybe someone here knows.

Carletta Richardson-Cheeseboro Have you tried Baking Soda and Awesome?

eric rivera Have you tried a pretreat and rotary scrub??

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:: Parking Question ::
Do you allow residents to park in guest parking spaces at night if no other parking is available? ????

Jared S. Leese

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Guest Insider My question to the property would be then why are you over selling parking?

Donje Putnam yes

Kathy Depends how much available parking you have. Sometimes the parking becomes a place for their friend to park their car when they go on vacation. If parking is tight, I think the parking programs work good.

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:::IDEAS PLEASE::: We have these awesome steel parking structures all over our property. However, if a moving truck accidentally hits them they can become damaged. EXTREMLEY EXPENSIVE to repair!! The arms stick out slightly so if a large moving or delivery truck gets too close they risk hitting. We are trying to think of a way to prevent them from being hit. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Brent Williams

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Miles Scruggs Put bollards at the corners etc so that they will hit the bollard long before they hit the structure. Then have cameras on them so if they do hit them you know where to send the repair bill and are less concerned about the cost.

Guest Insider Right yellow steel ballards (?) mounted at each corner. Only reason trucks clip roof /frame is the squeeze over curb. Block the curb.

Jessica Romero Require all moving trucks to provide insurance - just like they do at high rises. Strike a partnership with a company like Good Greek Moving & Storage that’s nationwide to give new move ins special pricing.

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What is your on-site transfer fee?

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Brenadette Day 300

Liz Clement 300

Lyn Smith $500 if before end of lease term

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Renewal Question…
How do you handle those who want to “negotiate renewal offers”?? I’ve always taken the firm position that we simply do not negotiate or change offered rates. A huge reason is because people gossip and would tell their neighbors to just ”go ask the office” to change the rate. However, sometimes a $25-$50 decrease on a large annual bump may make a difference to someone and avoid hundreds in turn costs. Thoughts?? ????

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Guest Insider Do it for one, you do it for all. Fair housing 101.

Lilah Poltz Removed

Laura Bruyere Can't negotiate rents or renewal increases. Negotiating rents are a big Fair Housing no no. I think it's okay to offer a cap for long term residents. Make sure it's consistent (5% max cap for all 10+ year residents) in writing, in your policy procedure manual, and it's offered consistently to all of those individuals equally every time. The discount would be based on the length of their residency and think that may be acceptable.

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Needing a Concrete Scrubbing Machine for our stairwells. No drainage so needing one that sucks the water back up.
Any good suggestions for machines ?? Thank you!!

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Becky Dotson How to get it to adhere good to concrete steps?

Guest Insider Small hand steamer. Worked at a highrise with concrete floors tried many things...

Guest Insider Paint them just use some “shark grip” additive to prevent slipping.

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Nicholas Clayton

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