So you need to know how to fill vacant units? Here are 5 proven tips for your website and property that will help you to fill!
This is Oliver Station, a housing complex based in Portland, Oregon. We designed this website with apartment search engine optimization (SEO) in mind from the start. The website was completed before construction was finished and by the time it was ready for new tenants they had completely filled every lease and have had a waitlist of apartment leasing leads ever since! If you follow the tips in this article you will definitely be able to fill vacant units.
First and foremost you need to know who your audience is. Every other tip will be more successful if you have a good understanding of who exactly you want to get leasing leads from. Are you trying to fill low income subsidized housing? Are you filling a 2 bedroom small family apartment in Kansas City, or a New York Studio? The message you send will be different for each audience.
Here are some good questions to ask yourself when trying to decide on good potential tenants:
What is my price? Who can afford that?
Are you pet friendly?
How many tenants will share a unit?
Where am I located and who lives here?
Do you already have some tenants? A great way to fill vacant units is to have existing tenants bring you leasing leads by sharing with their friends and family about where they live. One way you can help motivate this is through a referral program. Offer a gift card or other incentives to encourage tenants to spread the word. Not only will this help you as the property manager, but it will help build the community of your property into a friendly environment.
Here are some ideas for a referral program:
Cash rewards
Amenities discounts
Rent discounts
As mentioned before, one of the best things you can do for your property is to have a good website with proper search engine optimization. This means that you should include keywords related to your audience in your web pages. For example: high end spacious apartments in the Chicago area, affordable studio apartments in LA, or comfortable air conditioned apartments available in Houston. This is why knowing your audience is important when you want to generate good leasing leads from your website.
Here are some great ideas of things you should include on your website:
Apartment pricing
Amenities available
Location
High quality photos of vacant units
An important and often overlooked aspect of a good apartment leasing website is the ease of use. Often times you don't need a complicated application form or fancy gallery. Lay out the important information in an easy to read format and then include a contact form and contact information so that potential tenants can get more information. If you do a good job with tailoring your website to your target demographic and make it easy for them to use your website, you'll be sure to fill vacant units in no time.
Once you've followed these tips your email inbox may look something like this:
When you start to get the leasing leads to fill vacant units you will need to have the customer service to handle the questions and requests. As much as our search engine optimization for Oliver Station helped, it would have meant nothing if they didn't have someone there to follow up on the leads and take care of the new tenants.
If you want to fill vacant units there are a few easy things you can do to effectively bring more traffic to your website and new tenants to your property. If you'd like more information on how we can help you to reach 100% occupancy like Oliver Station, fill out the form below!
