The property has zero amenities outside of it’s location which is just minutes from good shopping and killer night life venues. It’s aesthetically unappealing having been fashioned after a road-side hotel – exterior entries and all. It’s brick construction, has tons of asphalt and has a name and signage that would fit as a  good frat house.

With occupancy in the tank and amenities as sparse as water on hot summer day on the Sahara – Mills Properties has its work cut out for it. But on the downside of any adversity lies the seeds of greatness. As long as you know how to look for them. The good news is that we don’t have to look to far in this case. Just eleven months ago we transitioned management of an asset right around the corner from ZAZ called Oxford. I like to refer to it as the Oxford Files. The occupancy was not quite as bad – sitting at just over 70% when we took over in August of 2009. It took us just over seven weeks to put on 20+ points of occupancy and swing the cash flow positive. The coolest part – $0 real dollars were spent on traditional means of advertising. Demand was created nearly 100% by Craigslist posts which were done on a daily basis without fail. I have a strong feeling that the results at ZAZ will be no different -

Hold tight for this ride – as we intend to record the ups and downs right here on the M Brewer Group Blog. Call it an exercise in real time results with the world watching. My hope is that we end up calling it an exercise in results on a shoe string.

As we roll along feel free to chime in using the comments section -

[Disclosure: I work with Mills Properties]

Increased Visibility

The use of social mediums and the creation of a real live and in the moment case study will bring attention to this otherwise lackluster (I use that term with all due respect) deal. The property is a classic destination deal located at the end of apartment row in an out of the way Saint Louis suburb. The city restricts the use of banners, bandits or any other free standing signage. Additionally, there is no monument sign of any sort. I think the use of social media will certainly augment our efforts to market the community and ideally it will mitigate our spend.

Community Builder

As we all know the real beauty of social mediums is the ability to communicate openly with our consumers. And, I think involving the current resident base in our turn around effort will bode huge in building the community. My thought here is to capture material in off-line spaces to build inventory for the various on-line spaces. Any and all offline events will be Flip’d and pic’d so as to provide material for a Facebook fan page and a community blog. Resident testimonials will be the keystone in building what will come to be vibrant place of social interaction. Over time the thought would be to harvest a community brand that residents, employees and prospects rave about. Ultimately the community will become self sustaining. Quixotic? Maybe. But, never underestimate the power of an energized crowd.

I look forward to providing some benchmarks in the very near future that we can measure our successes against. And, by all means, feel free to chime in with comments, suggests and constructive criticism.

Your looking forward to putting a dent in the multifamily universe collaborator,

M

Apartment Management, Multifamily Management, Apartment Marketing, Apartment Social Mediums