Mike Brewer

Employee Rent Concessions

May 8, 2012 By Mike Brewer Leave a Comment

This week we are rounding out our budget concession discussion with the topic of employee concessions. People are the difference that make a difference in property management. I would argue that it is not location location location but rather people people people that make or break the present and future value of an asset. You can have the best location on planet earth with the worst people and you are guaranteed sub-par valuation. Relocate that asset to a B+ location and team it with A+ characters and you will have yourself a winner. It really is all about the people. And, employee rent concessions are one way of saying thank you.

Value in Responsive Service

Beyond the concept of reward, concessions can be looked at as incentive for an employee to live on-site. There are clear advantages to owners when an employee lives on-site. It lends well to responsive customer service, especially if that employee works on the service side. As an example, if you have an A/C go out after hours, he/she can provide rapid and responsive service. If you provide lock-out services; the idea of rapid response is a real plus. In the event of a major crisis, employees living on-site can act as first responders in the way of organize and deploying crisis management protocols.

Things to Think About

I have seen this amount vary over the years and is certainly subject to ownership or property management protocols. It typically ranges from 15% to 100% and is credited monthly over the course of a lease term. It also typically carries a caveat in the way of an employee addendum that spells out strict concession payback and move-out protocols if the work relationship turns sour.

The biggest thing to consider is IRS implications. Always consult a good tax attorney when thinking about giving away money as I am certain our great Uncle will want his part.

Your – advocate of employee rent concessions – multifamily manic,

Filed Under: #aprartmentbudgeting, Budgeting, Uncategorized Tagged With: apartment budgeting, apartment concession, budget, budgeting, concession, employee rent concession, multifamily rent concession, rent, rent concession, responsive service, reward, strategy

Website is Key

April 18, 2012 By Mike Brewer Leave a Comment

Not…

Ran across a quote the other day that sent me thinking – in a contentious sort of way…

In today’s information age of marketing and web 2.0, a company’s website is the key to their entire business. – Marcus Sheridan

I rarely drop four letter words – as a personal choice – but this gave me cause. It was more like an eight letter but four letter affect word but passionate nonetheless. Maybe I missed the context of the remark but it just seems shortsighted.

Heart of a Company

I shared a story from Leo Buscaglia just a couple of days ago and it purely relates to my reproach. To me, it is much deeper than a website. Hate the soft side of business as much you want, think of it as the gnat that you can’t get rid of or the back burner – get to it some day sort of thing but that, my friends, is the key to business. In apartment marketing or management, your website is not key. You are.

I suppose I could agree that if information were the end all be all to business then your website is key. But information, be it about your apartments, management company or otherwise, is not what drives your business – people do. People are key. People make relationships and people compel others to respond and take next steps.

You can have the best website in your space but if the people at the end of that avenue are unkept, obnoxious and otherwise disinterested – you will struggle.

Information Age or Mindful Age

As we move away from share for the sake of sharing or sharing for the sake of garnishing good favor and thus a business transaction, I think being mindful of relationship on every level will be the key to business. Even when it comes to your website [your digital archive of information] you must be mindful of the people who are interested in the information. They are there because of their interests at that moment in time. But, most important, they are there to seek relationship first and information second.

So I borderline beg you – please argue that people seek out information first and relationship second so I can carry this conversation on….

Your – looking for some feedback – multifamily manic,

Filed Under: #apartmentmarketing, Apartment Marketing Tagged With: Apartment marketing, apartment website, information, Marketing, strategy, website

Apartment Budgets: Loss to Lease

March 27, 2012 By Mike Brewer 6 Comments

Welcome back for another installment of the Apartment Budget series. Today we are going to talk about Loss to Lease. Interesting side note, I did a piece on this a number of years ago and to this day it remains the number one read article on this blog.

Before we get started, I wanted to post a note of clarity as it relates to my last entry – Apartment Budgets: Rental Income. Where I refer to Rental Income in that post – I am really talking about Gross Potential Rent as being the top line. You may also hear it referred to as GPR. In any event, I wanted to head off any confusion.

LTL

Now unless you have a brand new community in lease up, you will have in place leases that are very likely below the GPR. The primary reason being rent increases. Any time you increase rents you create a margin between the in place leases and the new increased GPR. This can occur in reverse and the impact to the LTL can go in reverse. That is to suggest that you can decrease the GPR and the margin or LTL becomes positive. Not a scenario you see to often as rents generally rise over time in lieu of decline over time.

Loss to Lease – New Move In

To put it simply; if you lease an apartment below the GPR, the discount is captured in a Loss to Lease – New Move In line item. To put some math to it; if your apartment’s GPR is $500 and you lease it for $450, the $50 reduction in rent is capture in the Loss to Lease – New Move In line item as a -$50 charge. And, it will exist for the life of the lease.

Loss to Lease – Renewals

When leases come up for renewal and they are under the GPR number – the margin is by default in the current Loss to Lease line item. When the lease renews, if it is still under the GPR that new number gets captured in the Loss to Lease – Renewal line item. Putting some math to it. Suppose your apartment’s GPR is $500 and the current in place lease is $450 – you renew it at $475. The $25 margin is captured in Loss to Lease – Renewals.

Total Effective Rent

Once you have accounted for your losses related to in place, new and renewed leases under the current Gross Rent Potential – you come up with a Total Effective Rent. That is where we will pick up next week.

We have purposefully left out the analysis piece this week because I think it will fuel some crazy cool discussion. Hope to see you in the comment section below.

Your – lovin’ budgets – multifamily maniac,

Filed Under: #aprartmentbudgeting Tagged With: #apartmentbudget, Apartment budget, budgeting, Mills Properties, multifamily budget, operations, St. Louis Apartments, STL, strategy

Craigslist with a Twist

March 23, 2012 By Mike Brewer 6 Comments

Can you make it more social?

What if you took Craigslist and made it just a little more social? What if you extended your leasing team by four fold overnight? What if you took the current tired resident referral model and tossed in a tool to assist those who would actually assist us in producing leads and leases?

Get the community involved

I have thought for a very long bit of time and even experimented with the idea of partnering with the people who live in our apartment communities to churn out marketing on our behalf. Our experiments have not been backed by a ton of passion and or adopted with cheery fanfare by the people that we invited to play along and nonetheless I think there might be an opportunity. I intend to continue to experiment.

How do you make Craigslist a little more social?

The loose thought, in brief, is to organize four to six template Craigslist Apartment Marketing Packages. Photos, ad copy, headlines, pricing and the such would be included. A detailed white paper to include step-by-step instructions for posting and responding to would be residents. It would also include an introduction training provided by the Mills Marketing Team. The training would be supplemented by four to six ongoing training sessions over time.

WIIFM

What’s in it for me? Or, for them? The carrot – a monetary incentive for every lease we secured, aka – the resident referral fee.

What do you think?

Your -thinking Craigslist can be more social – multifamily maniac,

Filed Under: #apartmentmarketing, Apartment Buzz Marketing Tagged With: Apartment marketing, craigslist, Lemon, Marketing, strategy, twist, WIIFM

Choosing Not To Do

March 14, 2012 By Mike Brewer 3 Comments

“The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.” – Michael Porter

You may want to read and reread that last line a couple of times. [It's okay - I'll wait.....]

I think for many of us, me included, it’s usually more along the lines of what do we do next? What is the next thing to tweet? What is the next platform to try? What is the next marketing idea stone that needs to be turned over? How do we differentiate? How do we compete?

All good questions and likely good stimulates for conversation. But, what we leave out is equally if not more advantageous in forming an effective strategy.

What are you choosing not to do this year?

Pic Props: TSLBO

Filed Under: Operations, Strategy Tagged With: Apartment Operations, apartments, Leadership, michael porter, mike brewer, multifamily, multifamily operations, operations, strategy

How do I Build Habits?

January 20, 2012 By Mike Brewer 3 Comments

I am often asked questions that lead with the word, how. How do you do this, how do you do that, how can I be or do better in my career, life or otherwise. Or, how do you go about creating good professional habits? Which follows the lines of my favorite question, also the premise of this post; how do you get out of bed so early in the morning? My answer: I made it a habit.

Those that know me, know that I work crazy hours often times hitting the pillow right prior to the rooster’s announcement of the day to come. And, I rise at roughly 6:00am everyday without the aid of an alarm clock. It used to be 5am but the older I get the more sleep I am learning I need.

How Did I Build the Habit of Rising Early?

It all started in college. I played basketball at Texas Tech University back in the early 90′s and part of our pre-season conditioning was running at 5am – 4 days a week. Imagine trying to have a social life while being a student while training for basketball – its brutal. Granting the pre-season training was just a six-week stretch; it was still tough. And, required good habits. Rising early being one of them.

Rising early was not an easy task and getting to bed earlier was just not an option at that time in my life. So, what did I do? I put the alarm clock as far away from my bed as I possibly could. That act alone forced me to get out of bed and walk to turn it off. At that point it was absolute will power to not crawl back between the sheets. Now granted; I had massive leverage in that missing a morning run meant a serious consequence up to and including losing my full ride scholarship. But the action of getting out of bed that early over a six-week stretch, even with three days a week off, got me in the habit of rising early. And, I have never looked back.

Laying the Foundation Habits

What does rising early have to do with building good professional habits? I see three things in the life experience cited above; 1. catalyst 2. will power 3. massive leverage. It’s not one but all three working together that builds good habit.

Catalyst

Professionally [using a marketing bent], your catalyst should marry around something to the effect of; you will be the greatest social marketing master of all time. No kidding. Okay, maybe master is a stretch given the constantly changing environment. The point is that you must be willing to sacrifice massive amounts of time, effort and brain power to get up the curve and stay there. And, don’t think once you get there you can coast. It’s just as hard if not harder to maintain the pace concerning innovation, consistency, quality and quantity.

Will Power

To put it bluntly – some days it will just suck to be you. How do I get over that? I read a book some years ago that depicted a scenario where you pick the thing about your day that you just don’t want to do and go about making that the ‘knock it out of the park over the top most compelling and rich’ thing you have ever done in your life time. Try it – you’ll get the point when you get to the end of the project.

Massive Leverage

How do I create this in my life? I think about two things 1. My wife and kids depend on me to be the best I can be. 2. My good self can only be expanded upon or reduced upon by me. No one runs my game. I am responsible for the good, the bad and the ugly every day of the week. And to make sure I remember that; I read my personal creed along with my personal, professional and economic goals every single morning and with massive passion [read: creating massive leverage]. Read enough, things just seem to come together. I really can’t explain it except to tell you that it works 100% of the time.

Your rising early multifamily manic,

Filed Under: Leadership Tagged With: Habits, Process, strategy

#apartmentmarketing – 2012 Short List Prediction Post

January 2, 2012 By Mike Brewer 5 Comments

Don’t be afraid to get creative and experiment with your marketing. – Mike Volpe, Chief Marketing Office – Hubspot

Not another social prediction post! No, there are many really good ones already out there such as the one Mark Juleen posted with the help of Mike Whaling and Duncan Alney. Another fav is the one Brian Solis penned on the subject of social and how it relates to business in 2012.

I’m not heading for the broad angles or general predictions that seem to affront us all this time of the year. No, I would like to get a little more intimate and little more bold. To me 2012 will be the true year of pain for many of the tried and true resources that many of us have leaned on over the years to market our apartments and communities. The simple premise being that the proliferation of DIY platforms and DIY tools along with a growing level of comfort in using them have made it easier to compete.

The barriers to entry have crumbled and it’s time to ROCK!

My prediction comes in the way of a question -

Who will be your biggest apartment marketing competitor in 2012?

Print and Internet Listing Services

If you are anything like me you pay attention to everything the traditional ILS’s and print media outlets are doing in the social space and otherwise. In 2011 some of them made shrewd moves like employing our very own leasing consultant and management forces across the country to build Google Juice on their behalf. Brilliant but very un-partner like in my opinion. And, still others have stumbled; for example absolutely refusing to unbundle print from internet offerings until it was just frankly to late. Certainly soured my opinion of that specific group.

You just can’t see them as partners anymore [remember - they have to pay the light bill too] and to the extent that you can embrace that, use them where you need to [print and ILS are not broken and are still effective] and build a plan that brands you and your company first you will be better off. It’s frankly as important as sending out renewal letters and collecting the rent at this point.

Just know, anymore it’s not the building next door or across the street from you that is your biggest competitor. It’s more and more so the print media and ILS providers.

The Re-imagination of Locators in Secondary, Tertiary and Hyper Local Apartment Markets

Back in late 2004 or 2005 I met a guy named Eddie Passadore. Brilliant guy and passionate about the multifamily space. He came to work for Equity Residential and quickly went about producing some off the wall results. How? Craigslist. And, Rentwitheddie.com. That’s right he built out his own website, put his personal cell number on it, made himself available 24/7 and syndicated it via the emerging social platforms of the time. Namely Craigslist and MySpace. Result? He now runs his own property management firm in Portland, Oregon.

I recall spending countless hours brainstorming with Eddie about marketing oneself in lieu of physical buildings. It’s what inspired my personal blog [at the time called mike brewer on stuff and things] and the Portland Rocks Newsletter blog we ran back then that promoted Equity Residential’s Portland employees and properties. We talked about everything from using print to advertise our agents in lieu of our communities to building out personal websites for every single one of our agents. An idea I still think has some crazy potential [time and date stamped for future development]. And, he went and did it.

All that to suggest that the locator will have a major play in our space and many of our current day leasing consultants will be the people doing it.

Me. Us.

If we are to contend with the fire hose of data and change that will come our way in 2012, we have to invest in ourselves. I think this is the year that those who have sat on the sidelines as observers and passive participants are going to come alive. They will finally get that if they don’t they will be cooked and standing in the unemployment lines across this great nation. This is the year that organizations raise the bar for talent. No longer will mediocrity be tolerated. And, no longer will it be just okay to muddle along.

You are your biggest competitor in 2012. You are your own benchmark. The you that you look at in the mirror today should be a distant memory by the time you make it out of bed tomorrow. And, in a more beautiful way!

Here is to us in 2012!

Go – and make it relentlessly compelling!

Filed Under: Using Social Media to Market Apartments Tagged With: 2012 apartment predictions, 2012 social media for apartment marketing predictions, strategy, vision

#apartmentmarketing: Blog Format Question

September 8, 2011 By Mike Brewer 9 Comments

Short and sweet today -

One of my favorite blogs, one I read everyday without fail, is Valeria Maltoni’s – Conversation Agent. First rate content always.

Apartment Blog Trunk

I gave up on RSS feed reading about a year ago as I spend more time in my inbox. Nearly every blog I read is done through Outlook now and as such I give more time and attention to the things I read. In other words, I generally do not skim the headline and move on.

About a month ago Valeria made the decision to truncate her email subscription delivery meaning we only see a portion of the message and are forced to click on a link to see the rest.

Result: I read fewer of Valeria’s material to the end. Sorry Valeria.

I understand the reasons for cited in her Saying it in 200 Characters post back on Aug 10, 2011.

My question – should apartment marketers truncate their blog post offerings? We are trying it a Mills [Shameless plug - the Mills Blogging Team is Putting a Dent in the #STL market place].

Would love to hear this communities thoughts? And, thank you in advance for taking the time.

Filed Under: #apartmentmarketing, Apartment Blogging, Blogs, Blogs I am Inspired By Tagged With: @mbrewer, Apartment Blogging, Blogs, mbrewergroup, Mills Apartments, Mills Properties, millsapartments, strategy

#apartmentmarketing: Content

August 12, 2011 By Mike Brewer Leave a Comment

Focus on the core problem your business solves & put out lots of content & enthusiasm, & ideas about how to solve that problem. – Laura Fitton

Book of Solutions

Want tons of followers or fans? Write compelling content that is easy to read, packed with good actionable advice and be personable.

No sage advice there, right. I concur.

Apartment Content Marketing

As it relates to marketing apartments; I subscribe to the school that thinks you provide content beyond the good or service. In this case the actual apartment itself.

Rather look for opportunities to provide content that solves the following [no premise for the categories or the order of]

1. I can’t decorate to save my life

2. I need access to solid and reliable transportation

3. I want to walk to work

4. I want to walk to the coolest pubs in town

5. I need ideas on what to do tonight

6. I need ideas on what to do to this weekend

7. I want to be the first to know about the next ‘thing to happen in my neighborhood’

8. I want to know where to take my dry cleaning

9. I want to know where to get a good glass of wine

10. I want to know about a good alternative to Starbucks

11. I want to what I did last night….hmmm, maybe I don’t want you to solve that problem

12. I want to know how much you care before I buy from you

Have a smashing and amazing weekend; make it compelling too…

Filed Under: #apartmentmarketing Tagged With: @mbrewer, Apartment Blogging, content marketing, Engagement Strategy, mbrewergroup, strategy, word of mouth

#Apartmentmarketing: Blog for Juice

July 5, 2011 By Mike Brewer 1 Comment

No matter what, the very first piece of social media real estate I’d start with is a blog. – Chris Brogan

Blog About Everything Unrelated

United Blogs of Benetton is one of my very favorite blogs. It was one of my early inspirations when I started writing a multifamily industry related one back in 2005. The thing that struck me most about the blog is that it had absolutely nothing to do with their core business of fashion. In fact, I remember reading a post they wrote back around that time that suggested their reason for doing so.

I can’t find the post so I am doing my best to recall here. The gist was that they thought that the real value of blogging was to give the people that read it the essence of what they valued as an organization. In other words, they wanted to translate the values of their organization by way of compelling and worldly content.

Our First Company Related Blog

When we started our first company blog in 05′ we did just that. But in lieu of a forward facing, community gathering effort; we brought out the personality of EQRs Portland Portfolio. We called the blog: Portland Rocks Newsletter and the content consisted of stories about our teams. Be it work related or a personal experience we allowed just about everything.

Everything that is except for content about EQR or any specifically related to our apartment communities. Our chief aim back then was to invite people into relationship. Whether they bought from us or not was not the point of the blog. If they did, we considered it icing on the cake.

And, fathom this for a minute. It had nothing to do with SEO or SEM back then. Whoa!

It’s All About the Juice

Fast forward to today – everyone has a blog and everyone is jockeying for the first page of Google search. And, we all do it for Google Juice. We wrap it in 800 count Egyptian cotton [Read: adding value or enhancing experience].

All that being said, I agree 100% with Chris B.

AI: Start a blog today – if you have not already!

Filed Under: #apartmentmarketing Tagged With: #apartmentmarketing, @mbrewer, Apartment blog, Google Juice, mbrewergroup, Mills Apartments, Mills Properties, Multifamily Blog, strategy, Using Social Media to Market Apartments