Comments on: Apartment Marketing Ideas for 2010 and Beyond

By: mbrewer

mbrewer — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 14:31:09 +0000

I really enjoy the un-sexy off the wall maniac stories as much as I enjoy the cutting edge game changing over the top stuff – so – the offer is open. I think great ideas often manifest themselves from far different perspectives.

By: dennisfassett

dennisfassett — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 14:12:23 +0000

Mike – as I posted on twitter – the lack of perspective is mine. With 10k units we are in two completely different worlds. I'd be happy to guest post, but being an owner-operator of a small apartment and SF house portfolio that's deep in the weeds is not really all that sexy.

By: mbrewer

mbrewer — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 14:08:30 +0000

I would love to have you do a guest post with your perspective – I think it would add some good value to this discussion. Let me know if you are interested.

Thanks again.

By: mbrewer

mbrewer — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 14:04:00 +0000

Hey D -

Happy New Year to you.

I will admit - having spent ten years with Equity Residential and the past two with a 10,000 unit shop - my head swims in the big operation waters .

I would not disagree with you in the respect of lack of breadth and or lack of perspective relative to the small shops out there. I wouldn't dream of speaking from that perspective as I would bomb every time.

I agree too - having bought and sold a good deal of one off investment homes over the years - it's all about the flow... in that respect - monetize away. My only thought relative to the bigger players is - people are more and more inclined to opt out than to stick around ad invested environments. I say don't do it because I don't think you can afford to give people a reason to leave as it's to easy to do so today.

Thank you for the thoughts as I respect your position having followed you for some time now on Twitter -

Have a flowing new year and I look forward to more discussion.

By: dennisfassett

dennisfassett — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 13:46:56 +0000

Mike – with all due respect your perspective suffers from a lack of breadth. What you write seems largely relevant to large operators and property managers, but much of it is not for smaller operators like me. Digital AR and AP? That's a fine idea but hell – most of my tenants don't even have checking accounts. And it's similar with social media. I offer free wireless in my building in part to gauge who the computer users are, and only about 20% of my residents even have them. The same goes with paperless offices, help yourself leasing, and system self-diagnosis. And I'm not alone – there are many, many owner operators in building sizes and price ranges like mine.

And don't get me started on “monetizing everything”. Again it's a function of perspective – when it's your P&L you are a hell of a lot more interested in monetizing your effort and the effort of the people that you pay to get a job done, and there is no more definitive way to evaluate their success than monetization. So I'm happy to disagree with you on HOW to monetize effort, but I don't buy the suggestion that we shouldn't.