St. Louis Apartments
Apartment Search Twice as Efficient
What can you do to make searching for an apartment twice as efficient?
One Way
Give the people who do business with you twice the number of reasons to stay. Do that by making sure that you over serve the people who serve your organization. It’s called trickle down…
Second Way
Know that marketing is everything and everything is marketing – make it your mission to never settle for the idea of a middleman in your transaction. Throw out the idea that you should by ads or digital listings from people because they are nice. And, the bring you goodies around the holidays and throughout the year. Don’t get me wrong – I like most of those people too. I consider their value in the way of always keeping me on my toes. They help me understand the better, best and excellent ways to move people direct to Mills Properties instead of to their sites and then to my site.
Your always looking to make apartment search efficient for the people who need a place to live multifamily maniac,
M
pic props: Legends Web Design
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Apartment Budgeting: Trash Income
It’s time to talk trash. Not that recent election type trash. Not the fiscal cliff type trash. And, not your run of the mill sports trash talk. Albeit, that has its place and is fun when kept in good spirit. No – we are talking about making some income from your apartment communities trash collection.
Trash Income Defined
Trash income comes from charging back or passing through the expense that you incur for having your communities trash hauled away. And, unlike water and sewer income – trash is not a regulated utility. That means you can charge back more than your monthly invoice. For reference, I have seen this number range anywhere from $3 to $8 per occupied unit per month. I would highly recommend that you use a third-party utility billing firm to administer this for you. Typically, this is billed monthly with your water and sewer charges. The more sophisticated services include rents and other applicable fees on the same monthly billing statement.
Budget Strategy
This one is fairly straight forward and most budget models will have a formula baked in. If not, you can take your average number of occupied units over the course of the year and divide the total trash spend by that number to come up with an annual per unit number. You can then divide that number by 12 and the answer is the minimum number you should charge per month to recoup your cost. For example:
Community: 212 units – 94% forecasted 2013 occupancy – $12,000 trailing 12 months trash bill (forecasting zero increase for 2013).
212*94% = 201.4 average occupied units
$12,000/201.4 = $59.58
$59.58/12 = $4.97 per occupied unit
This is the minimum amount you would want to bill back in order to recoup the full cost of your annual trash bill. Now remember – trash is not a regulated utility. With that fact in mind, I think it prudent to charge more. In this example, I think $6 or $7 per occupied unit is completely in line.
In closing, increases in utility cost historically outpace rent increases. That said, it is would be borderline careless to not share that cost with the people who benefit from the services.
Your always looking for a way to maximize revenue multifamily maniac,
M
pic props: Tony Jacobson
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Apartment Budgeting: Corporate Rent Premium
Over the last couple of weeks we have discussed premiums that apply to such things as Month to Month Leases and Short Term Leases. Today we take a similar angle in the Apartment Budgeting Series as we are penning on the subject of Corporate Rent Premium. In the spirit of consistency, we will start by putting some definition around the term and then we will dig into some budget strategy and possibly some thoughts on marketing.
Corporate Rent Premium Defined
Corporate Rent Premiums are convenience fees added to your Apartment’s Market Rent. It is a little bit different from the last two fees that we penned about. In this case, apartments are generally leased and paid for by third-party agencies. National Corporate Housing and Oakwood are a few examples of the aforementioned third parties. You, in a sense, up charge the agency for the convenience of getting out of the lease(s) with just a standard 30 or 60 day notice.
I have seen the fee applied by way of flat rates and/or percentages with upsides of $300 or 10% of the market rate.
Corporate Rent Premium Budget Strategy
Like all other rent premiums this can be a tricky thing to budget for and it definitely something you want to control. To budget, I would refer to a twelve month trailing all the while considering current economic conditions. If the economy as a whole is downtrodden that the likely hood of a boom of corporate leases landing in your lap is between nil and none. If the economy is gaining traction and or booming you will likely see this business experience an uptick. But, it is always open-ended.
Remember to control this. I can’t tell you how many times I have sat in an owner’s meeting trying to remind them of their generosity in giving up 20% of their unit count to a corporate housing provider only to have that provider pull the rug out from under them. How quickly it becomes the other’s guys hot potato to deal with and explain. 5% is a good number to manage. 10% is pushing the risk handle. Anything beyond that is pure gamble in my book.
Corporate Housing Marketing Strategy
No ballyhoo with this one. It’s a simple down to earth Dale Carnegie approach to getting your foot in the door. Do a little research and find out what the owners and account executives grapple with. What are the biggest problems that they deal with? What keeps them up at night? What rattles their brain(s)? Get into that in the way of solutions. Solutions that you can play into their real-time business transactions and make sure your company and community are associated in some way. Be swift with any help that you can give to them. And, don’t be shy about asking for the business.
Your always looking for some premium to rent multifamily maniac,
M
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Cold Calling – New and Improved
I am consistently baffled by cold calling efforts in a business climate that has turned radically social. Vendors can get to know anyone on the planet by simply dialing into twitter, facebook, linkedin or otherwise. And, if they take the time to set back and listen, dive in and participate, provide value, give and take feedback and over a bit of time – sometimes a very long bit of time (@30lines took the time) (@jonathansaar took the time) they earn business. key word being ‘earn.’ Mike and Jonathan respectfully spent the better part of two years nurturing a relationship with Mills Properties and it has paid off in a good way for them. And, equally important to this point – the time they invested has been equally rewarding for Mills.
Cold Calling Giving Way to Cold Email
The following approach via the ‘contact us’ button our company website bakes my insides every time –
Hello,
I wanted to take a moment of your time to introduce myself and [don’t want to or am afraid to reach out via other more appropriate media – Graphics]. We are printers and graphic designers long specializing (since 19##) in the Multi-Family and Senior Housing industry.
We have lowered the prices on our FULL COLOR Marketing Business Cards!
500 = $50.00*
1,000 = $65.00*
2,500 = $110.00*
5,000 = $180.00*Prices DO NOT include Taxes, Shipping, Redrawing or Creation of a Logo.
Marketing Business CardsGreat low budget marketing tool!
This product’s features include:
square corners
2 sided cards same price as one sided
your choice of 3 types of paper:
14pt uncoated cover – traditional, non-shiny paper
14pt matte coated cover – satin finish
14pt coated cover with UV – very shiny
I invite you to check out our newly revamped website at [www.imacoldcaller].Multi-Family and Student Housing Specialists.
Long the focus of ***, our multi-family clients will love the extensive on-line shopping experience afforded by this new store. Printing, promotional products, signage, and more are offered here in an easy-to-order format, tailored for your industry.Promotional Products. Easy On-Line Ordering.
All of our customers can pick and choose from over #00,000 advertising specialty/promotional products. Shopping has never been so easy.Let me know if there is ANYTHING I can help you with.
Man I Don’t Like Cold Calling
Project Consultant at ***** Graphics******, ** *****
Office
Cell
Fax
The ONLY THING you can help me with is – helping me understand why this approach to business seems at all appropriate in today’s business climate?
Your – ranting on cold callers – multifamily manic,
M
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Apartment Content Relevancy
What makes content engaging is relevancy. You need to connect the contact information with the content information. – Gail Goodman
Ever wonder how to make your content compelling enough for people to want to connect with and share it? It’s a topic I think about all the time. And, one that our digital media team at Mills Properties recognize as key to our success. The short answer – relevancy.
Over the past year we have been busy hacking away at our online strategy and we are very excited about the fruits of that labor. Melissa D and Jessica H along with a whole host of crazy awesome blog post authors have put together something really special in my opinion.
A big part of that strategy centers around apartment content relevancy. Content that up to now I purposefully thought should have nothing to do with Mills Properties or the apartments that we market and sell.. As of late my mind is shifting away from that sentiment but not in a way that you might posit.
Apartment Content Relevancy
Our content strategy will remain the same. It will have nothing to do with our company or our apartments but in essence it has everything to do with both. The content is real, runs the gambit of emotions and speaks to relevant and for the most part very local and very people-centric happenings.
I see all of the content being created, be it on the blog or otherwise, as an extension of our people, our respective apartment communities, our company and the neighborhoods we participate in. It’s our way of weaving apartments, apartment community amenities and the people that live there into the fabric of the neighborhood. It’s a way, if you will, to bridge the gap between your contacts and the content people what to participate with. And, if executed with precision, it will begin to really define the interests of our respective audiences as it relates to the current day neighborhood and the neighborhood they want to see come to fruitiion in the future. Interests that will further define the relevancy which will in turn further define the content. Such a beautiful cirle if you really think about it.
Your – always looking for relevancy in the content – multifamily maniac,
M