Social Media is everywhere these days and is a cost effective way of marketing. Students are online and it is critical that apartment owners capture are ready to promote their properties via this method. Using Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking portals is a simple and valuable way to reach more people for little to no cost versus print media. Social media is also a powerful tool for improving tenant retention. It can be used to advertise events, leasing specials, and to find out what students like and ways to make your property more appealing, which makes for happy tenants. Happy tenants remain tenants.

Tenants are like gold coins. What do we mean by that? When someone gives you a gold coin, you treasure it. You don’t spend it. You keep it protected and secure. Treating our tenants like gold coins has caused our apartments to stay full while many other complexes struggle with high turnover. What’s our secret? Simple. We created an excellent lifestyle in our apartment complexes for our tenants. Happy tenants don’t move out. Happy tenants pay on time. We created a lifestyle that tenants don’t want to leave. Pretty simple stuff. Shhh…it’s a secret.

Adopt cutting-edge technologies. Today, it’s all about being more efficient. It’s about using the tools you have available to make your job easier. Our entire office system is automated and the staff is well-trained on the system. Our maintenance crew is literally tracked hour-by-hour during their shift using technology not available to us two years ago. Our marketing system has amazing follow-up abilities where absolutely nothing gets through the cracks. iPads are next for leasing agents, managers and maintenance crew!

Put new management in place: If you buy a distressed property that has a 70% occupancy rate and has an existing manger, the first thing you want to do is replace the manager because he/she probably has bad habits. If you are serious about what you are doing, put new guidelines in place. Clean house and replace the apartment property manager because that is the first step to raising rents and increasing the occupancy.

There might be a contract in place with the apartment property manager but most have a 30 or 60 day out-clause for both parties so you would have to give notice. Management contracts are usually pretty flexible.

Consider reviewing your price point and how your product is being positioned in the marketplace against your competition. For instance, if you have 4 bedroom units, that you lease as entire units, consider a “Suite” concept and lease by the bedroom. Alternatively, if you see that your marketplace is short on 3 bedrooms, and you have 4 bedroom units, consider marketing your units as 3 bedroom units with a dedicated “Office” and get a premium among 3 bedrooms that rivals your typical 4 bedroom rent. Sometimes it is easier to find two or three people to cohabit than it is to find four. Repositioning offers you a way to raise the rent on your apartment property.

Another must do when repositioning is to remove the bad tenants because they are dragging down your property. Other tenants in the complex know who the bad tenants are. You want to get rid of the bad tenants so you can create a friendly environment. You want your tenants to feel safe and secure. Even if the bad tenant is paying his rent on time, you still want to remove him because he is bringing down the rest of the apartment property, although we have found bad tenants are also the ones who do not pay rent timely.

Freshening up your property offers you a way to raise the rent on your apartment property. Or, if you are in a declining rent market or submarket, you can “hold” your rents better when residents feel more comfortable with the condition of the property. You can either go “all out” and completely rehab the property or go with the less intensive changes of cosmetic improvements on just the exterior.

1. COSMETIC: You are likely to hear some vernacular in the industry like “putting lipstick on a pig”. This refers to things like painting or landscaping and anything else that is non-structural in nature.
2. COMPLETE REHAB & FACELIFT: This option is more involved. You can put in all new appliances and new carpet on the vacant units and completely rehab it so some of the stuff looks new. The rehab does not necessarily change the class that the property is in. For instance, if you have a Class C multifamily apartment property that was built in the 60’s, it will still be a Class C after you rehab it.
3. AMENITIES: Today’s students have high expectation and desire the best amenities in student housing. Of the amenities, students are most interested in ones that foster social interaction. That being said, make sure your pool is a FABULOUS place for students to hang out.