PropertyManager.com » Heather Blume

5 Steps You Can Start TODAY to Get More Resident Lease Renewals

Heather Blume — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 17:59:41 +0000

I want you to get the most out of the 7 minutes it will take you to read this article. They say, time is money, but more importantly, time is opportunity. With that in mind, here are 5 ways for you to capitalize on the opportunities in front of you today to help you get more renewals tomorrow!

1) Contact Information Audit -
If you haven’t done one of these recently, it’s well past due. I am aware of how tedious it is to call every single resident and confirm or gather their contact info, but doing this serves some great purposes. First, you need that info. And you need more than just a phone number. With the prevalence of throw and go cell phones these days, you need a contact method that’s a little more dependable, namely email. I’m a big fan of also gathering permission to text your residents with information at this point as well. Secondly, when you make it a point to call every resident, you’re TALKING TO EVERY RESIDENT. You have a chance here to touch base with your customers and take the relationship temperature – Do they need a work order that they haven’t thought of? Are they still pleased with their home? Have little problems been building into big frustrations? This a good chance for you to root out those problems!

2) Work Order Audit-
If your office staff or maintenance staff doesn’t follow up on every work order done each week, this is a good time to start. Satisfacts Research has found direct correlations between outstanding and poorly completed work orders and resident turnover, and all it takes is a phone call, email, or text message to check in with your customers and make sure that the work was done to their standards. If you’re working in a busy office, make it your goal to follow up with 10 residents a day. Just 10. You spend more time than that on Facebook each day looking at people posting pictures of their dogs.

3) Get “Micro-Managey” with Your Property Walks-
That’s right, even when you do get a second to sit down, I’m asking you to get up out of that chair and walk your property. I want you to scrutinize imperfections like you were the biggest micro management manager on the planet. Take with you a legal pad and draw a line vertically down the middle. On one side of the line write “NOW” and on the other write “TBD” and list every single problem that you see in one column or the other. In the NOW column, write down little problems and short projects that you’ve been overlooking or procrastinating on. If it is a small thing that will take 5 minutes of a tech or leasing consultant’s time, then divvy up that part list and hand it out to your team, keeping some tasks for yourself. For the larger tasks, sit down with your maintenance supervisor and management team and get them scheduled on a calendar. If you don’t set a date, you’ll never get them done, and your residents notice when you procrastinate upkeep tasks on the property like pressure washing, painting, restriping the parking lot and repainting curbs.

4) While you’re doing number 3, don’t be all business about it
When we get clipboard tunnel syndrome, it’s easy to focus on that task in front of us and ONLY on that task. The problem with this approach is that you miss the life happening around you while you’re making your lists, and it’s that life, that community, buzzing around you that helps you rent your apartments, not to mention keep your residents. Make sure that you’re asking residents while you’re out and about making your lists how their lives are going, and then, if they actually answer you, please listen. Converse with them, make them feel appreciated or just on equal footing with you, and they’re more likely to stick around, even through the less than pleasant (for them) rent hike we know we have to hand out this year.

5) Don’t hide the rental rates
I wasn’t a fan as folks did this when the market was going badly, but I could see their reasoning behind it. But now?! Showing your rates and making that knowledge not only available, but visible to your resident base prepares them for the rental increase that’s coming. In fact, you could really look awesome here and by allowing them to see what the current market rent is, make sure that the renewal rate is a smidgen lower. The residents feel validated and appreciated, even though the rate is going up, and you’re not paying the cost of turning that unit, which, let’s face it, was going to cost you 2 to 3 thousand dollars. I think compared to that, a little off the top of their rental rate is a pretty small price to pay.

None of this is rocket science, but I didn’t promise you rocket science. I promised 5 things you could do today. Now – Time is opportunity! Get out there and make the most of it!

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iPad – Beyond the Cool Factor

Heather Blume — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 17:39:26 +0000

If you’re trying to justify the purchase of tablets to your company, you’re going to have to have more than a strong, “I want it because it’s neat,” factor. With all the programs that have been coming out with great tablet integrations and apps, on site teams are salivating over these little toys. In fact, over the last 18 months I can’t even count how many people have told me how great leasing with a tablet can be. It’s cool. Prospects love playing with it. It gives you that nifty techie edge to your apartments.

But did you know that the uses of Apple’s iPad can extend straight to your bottom line? I’m talking about NOI here, ladies and gentlemen. Not the leases we might get, but the delinquencies that we already have.

That’s right – Your ADL can benefit from a little tech touch up.

I got turned on to this idea by a property manager out here on Mercer Island who, rather than just printing out the ADL letters and mailing/taping them to resident’s doors (which always looks so classy!), sends their people to knock on doors at the end of the day to remind residents of their balances in person.

Uncomfortable, you say? I would agree to an extent, but the diversion of the iPad makes this face to face, budget enforcing task a success for the property. When the resident answers the door, they greet the resident and let them know that they have an outstanding balance with the office, and then they OFFER THE CONVENIENCE of paying that outstanding bill, right there, online using the resident portal on their iPad browser.

Residents are more likely to pay right then and there because it’s not “out of sight, out of mind,” and they see it as a bonus that the management team came to them on their time and they didn’t have to remember to stop in at the office, or make time on a weekend to do so.

People will use your services if you make them easy to use by providing great customer service to go with them. Technology can enhance that level of service, and can enhance your budget and bottom line if you know how to get the most out of it.

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Big Goals Are Possible…In Manageable Chunks

Heather Blume — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 15:00:41 +0000

National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo as it’s called, happens every November. It’s one of those self challenges that we often take on, “Just to see if we can do it.” The goal for NaNoWriMo is to write a 50,000 word novel in just 30 days. Just to give you an idea of how big that undertaking might be, I’m on page 107 of my novel, and only at just over 46,000 words currently. And today is the 29th.

I know few people out there who wouldn’t consider that a pretty intense goal.

I’ve wanted to try NaNoWriMo for several years because I’ve heard amazing things about the creative experience, so I was looking forward to the process acting like a sauna, opening up my pores of creativity and helping me get past several months of content production frustration. I expected to learn a lot about the writing process, and the way that I think about writing in general. What I didn’t expect to gain was a new suitcase full of metaphors for business, starting with a new way of looking at getting stuff done.

At 50,000 words, the undertaking is intimidating at best. Huge number. HUGE. But they break it down and tell you that if you just average 1667 words per day, you’ll reach your goal in 30 days. Years ago, when I went through my NAA Advanced Instructor Training, the phrase often tossed around was, “Manageable Chunks.” It’s how we’re taught to structure lessons so that learners don’t get overwhelmed with information. While the idea has been a staple in educational theory for years, it seems to be one of those behind the scenes types of things for people, and it’s not something we teach people unless we are training them to be a trainer.

Do you know where else this “Manageable Chunk” theory could come in really handy? Goal setting. As much as we like to just be able to hand over the reigns on a project to our staff, it can be incredibly difficult to let go because we’re not sure if they will be able to complete it. And they beg us for opportunities to prove themselves, for chances to try new things, and for a moment to earn the right to shine.

Well, examine for a moment what gives people the chance to shine. It’s the important projects, the ones we can’t afford to mess up because corporate is watching. Those projects are the first ones that managers on site tend to hoard to their own desks, because they HAVE to make sure they get done the right way, on time. The problem with this school of thought is that by the time you stack your desktop with the projects that MUST have your direct oversight, you’re not going to be able to see over your desk.

So, we find ourselves between the proverbial rock and hard place. We can’t let anyone mess up the projects, but we can’t possibly complete them all if we keep them to ourselves. What’s a skilled manager to do? Well, just like the folks at NaNoWriMo, when you’re handing out a large undertaking, it’s smart to hand out a game plan to go with it. Giving your staff small goal marks and checking to make sure that they meet them isn’t micromanaging; it’s smart management.

The directors of NaNoWriMo also acknowledge that people work at different speeds, so they’re flexible with their daily goals. I love this approach. Not everyone will stop at 1667 words per day, and some days you can barely get 500 to a page.

You, too, must learn to allow flexibility with those progressive benchmarks. If someone is behind for a day or two, that’s okay. You never know what day three will bring. Now, obviously when someone is a week behind, it’s time to step in and either help them catch up or reassess the mini goals that you’ve set. But allowing people to work at their own pace through the “Manageable Chunk” that you’ve set is an amazing way to encourage self reliance, inner drive, and pride in the job they’re performing. It shows your employees that you trust them and that you feel comfortable relying on their good judgment, which, in turn, breeds loyalty from them to you.

You’ll be surprised how much you and your staff can complete when you break down that overwhelming task in to manageable chunks. The speed that I reached just the first 30,000 words in the month of November surprised even me. When you look at the smaller pieces, you’ll shock yourself at how quickly they add up to a much larger whole.

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A Little Distance Can Help You Solve Big Property Management Problems

Heather Blume — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 14:00:58 +0000

Sometimes, all it takes is a little distance.

For the last month, I’ve been in a pretty deep problem. I followed my usual method of just sitting down and the keyboard and trying to let things simply “flow” but it seemed like someone or something had plopped the Hoover Dam right down across my creativity river. For a content creator, such as myself, that’s a pretty serious problem. So, I really decided to focus in on it, or as the current business jargon would put it, “Drill Down!” I’ve read at least 6 books in the last 4 weeks about writer’s block and frequented sites with exercises to relieve the ailment every single day. Getting rid of this block pretty much consumed my mind for the last month.

The other day, it hit me. After a few days of realizing I was really depressed about this lack of creation, I finally had an epiphany. Of course I couldn’t create anything – I was so focused on the fact that I couldn’t do it, I was consumed.

I know you’ve been there.

Maybe it was with budgets this season? Or a particularly challenging problem employee? Maybe it’s professional life intruding on personal or vice versa? Maybe you’re fighting burnout?

When you’re doing a daily drown in the negativity river, you’re going to be walking around with a lot of residue on you – a residue that you can’t ever totally wipe away. It starts to infect everything and everyone you come into contact with. That resident who used to be “eccentric” and “quirky” is now the most annoying person on the planet and you want to taze them every time they dare to darken your doorstep. Or the cute competitive leasing agents you used to enjoy managing now seem to always be bickering about petty things that don’t matter.

It’s about your perspective. It’s time to step back and disconnect from the problem that is consuming you. Shift your focus. I promise, that problem isn’t going anywhere if you take a few hours to look at something else, but you might be heading to insanity-ville if you don’t give yourself a break.

Try this: Stand up. Walk away from your desk. Go visit your property management team and ask them about the problems they’re having. Spend about an hour mentoring them and helping them. When humans do something altruistic, it has a revitalizing effect on the human psyche, allowing you to go back and look at your problem from an additional distance. It’s been proven time and time again that fresh eyes on a problem often see overlooked solutions or creative fixes. If you’ve been neck deep in it for more than three days, your eyes aren’t fresh anymore. It’s time to take a break.

You’d be surprised how useful a non singular focus can really be when you’re wallowing in a single worry. Who knows – you might just produce something awesome on the other side of your troubles.

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Property Managers: Know Your Audience When Marketing Online

Heather Blume — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 18:22:19 +0000

I tell people repeatedly that I’d rather that they had no Facebook page than seeing a poorly thought out and executed one. Yet, I keep logging on, “liking” pages, and seeing sales pitches.

If you go for the direct sale, you’re going to lose. Consider these stats from the video “Socialnomics”.

96% of people under the age of 30 belong to a social network

78% of people trust peer recommendations

14% of people trust advertising

90% of people TIVO past their ads

You have to remember who you’re talking to. You’re trying to market to generations who don’t trust marketing, who are characterized by being skeptical and who avoid marketing as much as possible. And you’re asking them to “like” a page with a sales pitch on it. I don’t think that’s going to pay off for you. Don’t have your landing page be a big explanation about your property and why you’re so great – they don’t care. A landing page should be a call to action. Personally, I love property management Facebook pages that land on the wall. I think it breeds more engagement and interaction.

If you knew your audience here, you’d know they’re shying away from anything that looks too “corporate.” You’d also know that one of the most important statistics you can look at on your Facebook Analytics is the number of “HIDE FEED” clicks you’re getting. It’s not just about getting the initial mouse click of “like,” it’s about maintaining the ability to show up in their news feeds when you post. To stay on someone’s news feed, you have to be putting out content that they like. It sounds pretty simple, but if you don’t know your audience it can be surprisingly complicated.

So, what do people want to hear about? Look to the community around you. Events, festivals, shopping, deals, things to do; these are all things that people who live in your apartments might care about. On top of that, you’re looking for news stories, interesting online sites, or other content that would be useful to those around you. Some of my favorite places to find content are www.buzzfeed.com and www.tesh.com, both of which have good pieces of interest that can generate engagement and interaction with your followers.

Also, bear in mind the direct demographics you’re trying to hit. If you’re a 55 and older community, I don’t think they’re going to care too much about Lindsay Lohan’s newest mugshot. On the other hand, they might car about some of the cool stuff that is handmade on Etsy.com or in being taught how to sell their own goods on the site.

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Top 10 Highlights of the 2010 NAA Trade Show

Heather Blume — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 17:28:13 +0000

New Orleans is a fun city. New Orleans with over 4,000 of your closest multifamily friends – it’s a wonder there wasn’t some sort of ecstatic implosion! The 2010 National Apartment Association conference was all around an excellent experience. The NAA not only did a great job lining up amazing speakers and captivating sessions, but also, with the help of amazing vendors, made sure that the Exposition floor was a fun place to be! As always, my eyes and ears were open, so to those of you who were not in attendance, I pass along my top 10 list from this year of awesome things that you missed:

1. The Bags
Okay, I admit that this is probably not one of the biggest things on most people’s lists, but I want to give major props to who ever picked this year’s bags out. Usually you get some kind of awkward canvas number with the nylon handles that cut into your shoulders by the end of the day. Not this year! Black messenger bags, designed to sling across the body with adjustable Velcro straps, and a huge compartment that zipped shut. I know that for a lot of people, they could care less about the bag, but let me tell you – by the end of the day, when I’m tired of carrying all the great info, pens, and cowbears I’ve picked up from the vendors on the conference floor, all I want is something that doesn’t make my shoulders hurt to carry it. Also, what is the point in doing a conference bag if it’s one of those cheap and ugly numbers that I’m never going to use again after I get home? Not the case this year! I love this thing! Good job this year, NAA!

2. The Check in Process
Again, not a major spot for most lists, unless you’ve stood in a check in line for over 2 hours before at a conference (which I have!). The line moved quickly and efficiently. Granted, I arrived early for the first day (you don’t miss a session when you’re paying to be there!), but I was really impressed with the way they had everything set up and ready to roll people through. I stood in line for about 8 minutes, and there were a LOT of people in front of me when I started. Nice planning and execution there!

3. Cajun Food
It burns the whole way through your digestive tract, so packing the Pepcid AC isn’t optional, but despite the kick, you can’t stop eating it! I had great food EVERYWHERE I went – from the alligator sausage at the party with CORT my first night in NOLA, jamming with Apartment Guide at the House of Blues, and being brave enough to try something called a “Meatpie” at the great opening event with the NSC Thursday night at Mardi Gras World, I NEVER found that there was something I didn’t like to eat!

4. The Energy
Do you know what you get when you put thousands of passionate and creative people in the same space? You get risk takers. You breed thought leaders. You inspire change and forward thinking. There is nothing comparable to the energy boost that your employees can gain from going to a conference like this, and I live in Seattle, caffeine Mecca of the western U.S. When you return home, the same problems that you left are still waiting for you, but you have the initiative to finally deal with them. That’s one of the most precious things that people gain from the pure energy synergy that is happening at these conferences.

5. Inventive Vendors
This year’s Expo floor was not just full of vendors with the usual booths. I applaud some of the awesome ideas I saw out there! From impromptu competitions of how many people you can fit in a shower, to caricature drawing, to a great game of Name That Tune with a live saxophone player, the floor this year was interactive, engaging and a very pleasant place to spend time. For those vendors who went that extra mile in creativity this year, kudos to you – you’ve set the bar for next year! I expect the floor in Vegas for NAA11 to be at least twice as much fun! Come outside the mold of just handing out pens to people who walk by and try engaging them – you’ll get a lot more out of your booth fees!

6. Education Sessions
I was lucky enough to sit in on some really well done education sessions by Andrew Botieri, Nadeen Green, Jackie Ramstedt and Alex Jackiw, and Lisa Trosien. There is something magical about watching these kinds of experienced and professional presenters on stage. The content of their sessions, and other classes that I didn’t get the chance to see but did get the rundown on, was motivational and useful to the audiences. In fact, out of all the sessions presented over the three days of the conference, I only heard bad things about one single class, where the presenter unprofessionally tried to sell his services to the crowd. Every other session gained well deserved glowing reviews on both content and presentation style. For a run down of some of the great classes, check the NAA write ups on the seminars.

7. The Science and Psychology of Leasing
Lisa Trosien’s session on the Science and Psychology of Leasing was flat out incredible! If you missed this session, I suggest you go and pull the tweet transcript from the conference for the time it was going on because the information and research that she put out there is something that EVERY leasing team should have access to! Lisa was frank enough to address an irritating inconsistency of our industry – we hire sales people and then try to convince them (or they try to convince themselves) that they are not “sales people.” This is a mistake. If you want to close more leases, I suggest checking out the notes from her session, the tweets, and the NAA write up on the session.

8. Dan Thurmon
If you missed his session, this guy is AMAZING! I’ve never seen a speaker walk a tightrope and juggle meat cleavers at the same time, all while driving home points about business, progress, and forward thinking. Granted, I may have been in extra awe, since those of you who know me are aware that I can barely walk and chew gum at the same time without falling over, but there’s something to be said for a guy who can ride a unicycle throughout a crowd AND deliver a motivational session about risk taking and moving outside your comfort zone!

9. The All Stars Idea Factory
90 minutes with these three women going full speed would make anyone’s head spin for hours in the idea generation space! All three, Kate, Lisa, and Mindy, had inspiring ideas to pull from for upping numbers across the board, from traffic generation, to closing leases, to retaining residents. One of my favorite ideas from this session came from the queen of Rent and Retain, Mindy Williams, who passed on an awesome idea from www.pizzafest.org, a company who can put your property’s logo on pizzas (fully edible!). And that was just one of the awesome things that made my, “How cool is that!?” alarm sound during their great session! Again, I suggest hitting the twitter transcript for the session time. Between myself and the other 10 tweeters in the room, I think we got almost every idea tweeted out there, and there is gold in them hills!

10. There Are No Strangers
Strange people, yes, but strangers, never! NAA is one of the times every year where I get to see my friends from across the country, and I get to revel in their genius and feed off of their energy and motivation. It’s where I fill up the creative well, so to speak, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. These people are why I do what I do, and every year as I spend time with them, I meet and get closer to new people that I would have never had the chance to interact with had I not journeyed to conference. This is one of the major reasons I love my multifamily family. There is always room to make friends with someone new who walks into the room that you’re in. It didn’t matter if I was on Bourbon Street, at the House of Blues, the expo floor, a session room, or even my hotel lobby, there was no way to feel left out. There is no arguing that in our industry, we feel a deep kinship to each other. Sometimes, throughout the stressful times of the year, as we compete with each other for the lease, client, or speaking gig, it can be easy to forget that, but at NAA it’s always a greeting with a hug because we are a family – not only can’t you escape that, but after spending a week with these incredible people, I can’t imagine anyone who would want to.

Needless to say, if you haven’t started squirreling away money in the budget to attend NAA next year in Las Vegas, now is the time! If you choose to get the most out of your conference by attending the sessions and spending time with your fellow attendees, it’s one of the best professional investments you’ll make all year.

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Attention to Resident Retention for June

Heather Blume — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 23:05:18 +0000

I love camping. Not so much the whole mosquitoes, poison ivy, going to the bathroom outdoors part of it, but more the, “Look at me, the hearty nature girl…surviving on hot dogs, chili, and coke that came out of that cooler over there by my car, where I’m charging my computer and WiFi off the a/c adapter,” side of camping. Before dating an eagle scout in college, I didn’t know that real people hiked away from their car to set up a camping spot, wasn’t aware that a frame-pack and a backpack weren’t the same thing, and that “real” campers didn’t take an air mattress with them for use inside their tent. And I was a kid from the country. Just think what those urban kids must consider “camping.”

In recent years, however, my vocabulary has come to include words like “tarpaulin” and “Dutch Oven.” There’s no denying that there is something magical about camping, even if it is only in your own back yard. Money is still tight this summer, and while a lot of reports say that people are booking vacations again, more real people that I talk to on a day to day basis aren’t planning on going anywhere this summer because their budgets are still recovering in the wake of last year.

A lot of communities have open play fields or courtyards integrated into their design, the purpose of which, usually, is to sit there, look pretty, and encourage us to pay landscapers. If you have the resource and you’re paying to maintain it, the least you can do to be responsible to your budget is to find some use for it. Besides, imagine the fun of organizing and executing a property camp-out! It’s a little extra work for your staff, but for an event that people will remember and talk about, it’s worth it. And this is an idea that, depending on your staff’s level of excitement, you can either do the bare minimum or go the whole 9 yards on. Best of all, this sort of event doesn’t have to cost you an arm and a leg. Food costs are under $100 for most properties and entertainment can be anything from water games and volleyball to scavenger hunts and ghost stories. Your residents can use their own tents or sleeping bags or, if they don’t want to be directly involved, you can ask for volunteers who would be willing to loan equipment to other families.

S’mores, roasting hot dogs on a stick, having an open fire pit (or even a grill if you don’t know how to build a safe pit or don’t want to pay for an external pit), ghost stories and sleeping bags under the stars (or ambient metro lights) – the pictures and stories alone that come out of this kind of event will look amazing on your property management Facebook page. But, more importantly, you are connecting with your residents. Remember: when we connect, we retain!

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June Property Management Marketing Ideas

June Property Management Marketing Ideas

Heather Blume — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 19:49:53 +0000

June is a month with amazing marketing possibilities! With the kids getting out of school, the sun beating down and the days getting as long and bright as possible, how can we expect our traffic and touring numbers to do anything but shoot through the roof this month? Here are a few of creative ideas to help you stand out and compete with the other properties on a prospect’s agenda for the day.

Treats!
I’ve talked about this often before, but it bears repeating: EVERYONE has cookies and coffee. Once everyone has something, it’s no longer memorable, so try something new for the month of June. Instead of cookies and coffee, try offering Root Beer Floats! I know very few people who would turn one down, and it makes for a good conversation springboard. It also opens the door to talk about resident events, because if you’re willing to try this for your future residents, just consider what you do for the people who ACTUALLY rent there!

I Need a Vacation
Travel is back in this year! Granted, due to a record year of unemployment, you would think a lot of people would be embracing that stay-cation again this year, but according to recent reports, the tickets have been booked to a lot of the usual vacation wonderlands. But what about those folks who couldn’t quite make it happen this year? When a person isn’t able to do what the majority of their peers are doing, they feel left out; a bit of psychology can be a powerful ally in marketing! Consider working with a local travel firm to get discounted or all in one vacation packages that you can use as a rental/renewal incentive. Cruises have seen resurgence in popularity over the last few years because they are more affordable and all inclusive than some other travel packages, but if you have some great attractions within four hours of your property, a weekend get-away might be a great marketing idea as well.

Local Festivals
This one might be a little far for some, but when we move into the warmer months, we also move into the festival months! Local festivals and events can be a great way to generate traffic for your property. If your property is located near the festival (or if you’re lucky enough to be across the street!) and you have air conditioning in your clubhouse, consider offering it up as a relaxation station for overheated folks. Another way to capitalize on a local festival is to actually sponsor a booth. Usually the pricing is reasonable, and if you offer something fun like face painting, or balloon animals, you’ll get the chance to talk with people all day. Check with your team and see what talents they hold that could be useful for a booth this year. (The face painting booth might also be an interesting idea to experiment with if you have a local weekly farmers market in your area.)

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Upgrade Your Properties with Local Art

Heather Blume — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 14:00:29 +0000

I’ve been out shopping your properties. Guess what? That picture in your leasing office / cabana / model unit needs help!

You know the one I’m talking about. It’s that sun-faded print in the beat up frame that you found in one of the storage rooms and decided to put up on the wall because the wall looked bare. Now your wall doesn’t look bare, but it does look ugly, and I have to wonder if you’re using that big frame to cover up some massive hole in the wall that you didn’t want me to see or didn’t want to take the time to fix. Is this the first impression that you want to make on a prospective resident? We can do a little better than this, and guess what? It’s not going to cost us the usual price of redecorating!

What’s an aesthetically challenged office to do? Let’s start by tapping our local art!

I was an art student once, and I will tell you straight up that if you want something that will generate traffic, give you something to start conversations with, and will just plain out do those pictures your walls are currently sporting, college aged art students are about to become your best friends. Why? Because they need a venue to show their work.

Here’s how the program works:
Contact your local colleges or, if you don’t have any, local artists groups and let them know that you are looking for someone to show their work on a “rotating basis” at your property. 30 days, 60 days, 90 days – whatever works for you, it will work for them. Offer to show their pieces at an “80/20” rate, meaning that they keep 80% of the sale (a massively high amount in the art world!) and you keep 20% of the profits from any piece sold as a result of it being shown there. Depending on your community, this can become a great source of ancillary income. If you’re not in an arts heavy community, you’re still reaping the benefits of having contemporary art up in your offices, something your competitors are probably not doing. On top of that perk, you are integrating yourself with the community around you, bringing you more visibility and good will. (You can never stock pile enough good will these days.)

Doing a monthly artists’ reception can be a great way to bring traffic into your community on a weekend day, and since most college BFA candidates have to have a “show,” depending on who you pick, this will probably also cost you very little. Otherwise, work with a local restaurant, coffee shop, etc. to see if they would be interested in offering their services to your captive audience for an afternoon. In this challenging economy, you’ve got a good chance of getting a yes from people who are trying to build a client base.

Some points to remember:

Have an artist’s contract. Make sure it outlines set up/take down times, the length of the show times, types of art that can be displayed, appropriate hanging methods, and the sale profit breakdown, should any of their pieces sell.

Make sure that your artists either sign a liability waiver to display at your place OR carry their own insurance on their pieces. Don’t let yourself be liable for someone’s “masterpiece”

Reserve the right to Yea or Nay what gets displayed in your space and make sure that verbiage is in your artist’s contract. Paintings of dogs playing poker are okay…maybe?

When you talk to your local college, make sure that you are talking to the professor who chairs the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. They’re the one who can get you the choice pick art students.

And remember please: When you’re picking art, just because a piece is brilliant, does NOT mean that it’s appropriate. Art on the walls is the same as any other sales enhancer. If it doesn’t fit the demographic, if it doesn’t fit the style, if it doesn’t fit your brand – don’t use it.

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Attention to Retention

Heather Blume — Tue, 11 May 2010 14:00:23 +0000

I know we’re moving in to that crazy super busy leasing season (or at least we all hope that we are), and I remember from working on site exactly how draining some of these upcoming days can truly be! The last thing we want to do is to add anything more to our already overflowing schedules, but I want to encourage you to work in some resident retention time.

Remember, it’s STILL cheaper to retain them than to turn even one apartment, and working the retention angle is one of the more fun things that we get to do in the world of property management. It’s all about making real and personal connections, and that starts with getting your residents out of their apartments and socializing with each other. Here is my top idea for the month of May.

Outdoor Movie Nights!
This is a really fun idea that doesn’t have to cost you a ton of cash. I have seen properties do everything from projecting the movie on the side of a building, to showing it on a bed sheet, to (my personal favorite) showing the film in the swimming area, letting their residents swim and view the film at the same time. If you think about going with the last idea there, have a little fun with it by showing a water-based movie like The Little Mermaid or something a little more sinister like JAWS.

And you can almost be assured that with proper marketing to your residents, they will show up for this one. Do you know how much an average night out at the movies costs? Box office sales in America are up 10% this year overall, but the cost per person at some of these theaters is going to jump roughly 8.3% when 3D movies become more common, making this an event idea that not only can be a lot of fun, but can also be a huge money saver for your residents, which is something almost everyone cares about these days. Allow them to bring a friend and you’ve just make the smart leap from in-house resident retention to property management marketing!

Popcorn is cheap and one of the easiest things to make, so I’m going to suggest to you that you pass on making the microwave kind and go for air popped. This plays well to almost everyone, since air popped popcorn is one of the healthiest snacks out there (only 60 calories for 3 cups popped!) and if it’s plain you can always incorporate a “popcorn buffet” idea into your gathering, where you set out different toppings and let people design their own dish of popcorn. Here are some of the suggestions that I use when I do this kind of a gathering with my friends:

Cheese powder

Ranch powder

Butter or Butter spray

Parmesan Cheese

Caramel Syrup

Chocolate Syrup (the stuff for sundaes)

Cinnamon Sugar

Italian Spice Mix

Or anything else you can think of that might be tasty on top of popcorn! Remember, you’re only limited with this idea by your own imagination and willingness to execute the idea.

When we connect, we retain!

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