Want More Rent?

by Eric Brown on April 18, 2008

Color, Color, Color, add Color! Painting your units with color WILL start your trek to Break from the Pack. It is easy and you can afford it. What if you couldn’t afford not to? In today’s economy you can negotiate a deal with your local painter, and not just an accent wall, DIFFERENT colors in different rooms. It is as simple as choosing a few 6-8 different color pallets as options, and paint away. If you want to stand out from the folks across the street, start with color.

Want to really stand out, use COLOR and Low Emitting Paint, and start the path toward a “Greener Building” This stuff works, and is easy to implement, but……………., don’t ask, everyone will tell you no. Be the renegade, do it anyway and see the results in a unit that rented faster and for higher rents.

More to follow on Getting More Rent…………., and Thank you Mike for allowing me to articulate my thoughts and views on How to Break from the Pack herein on this venue.

Eric

Brent, Thank you for the comment, I suppose the bigger topic for debate and discussion may be, although unpopular, but I hope it stirs someone out there up enough to DO SOMETHING, is get past the fear of not following the normal path. Break from the Pack yourself, do what Raises Rent, thus Raises NOI, that will get you noticed, and that equals job security. Stop following the norm, and for goodness sakes, don’t ask for permission, because your boss and the bosses boss is likely as afraid as you are, and will tell you no we can’t do that. This particular topic is about paint, but it applies to a multitude of forthcoming topics on raising NOI and Breaking from the Pack of Apartment Commodity. Having spent most of my career at Corporate America in a very structured and successful Multi Family Developer, Builder and Apartment Operator, I know that from VP’s to AD’s to Site Managers, they are afraid to lockstep too far out there, and unfortunately, in our industry, painting an apartment unit with color, which then translates it into someone’s home, with some character, is not normal. This is maddening and is a travesty. Can you imagine if the car companies painted every car beige. Henry Ford stopped doing that (75) years ago. So, if you read this, and you want to do something to Raise Rents and increase your NOI, Paint the Walls with some color, and in the process you will also raise Your Value, what a win win, Enjoy the Weekend!
Brent Williams

Eric - Great first post! I definitely agree with the color - Anything you can do to "customize" an apartment for a resident will also make it harder for them to move away. If they move, not only do they have to move all of their furniture, but they also have to paint the walls again!