rent apartment 4 bedroom

aimee: that's good for the gotowebinar panel. let me tell you just a little bit about appfolioand who we are and why we host these kinds of events. we love to connect with property managersthrough education. because we provide web-based property managementsoftware, it allows our customers to really run a more successful and profitable business. we especially love this topic, raising rentswithout impacting retention, because our customers are always interested in this and increasingtheir profitability. with our complete web-based property managementsoftware, we've built in all of these features

that allow our customers to save time andstreamline a ton of these routine tasks. they can move rent collection and collectapplications all online as well as track guest cards and prospects. they can market their business professionallyand attract more renters, as well as really quickly and easily screen prospective rentersas well as offer insurance that protects their properties. this is a great, complete solution and wealways encourage people on the call that if you don't love your current software, youcan. at the end of today's session, please letus know if you're interested in learning more

about our software. there will be a little survey at the end andyou can let us know if you would like someone to give you a little intro and overview ofappfolio software. now i'm going to go ahead and pass it on tomy cohost, kara, who will tell you a little bit more. kara: thank you, aimee. hello, everybody. i'm kara rice with grace hill. i certainly appreciate you taking time outof your busy work life to get smarter with

us today. before we dive into today's outstanding presentationand our outstanding presenter as well, doug chasick, this is my chance to give you justa quick shameless plug about my company, grace hill. i will be brief, i promise. at grace hill, we pride ourselves in beingthe apartment industry's leading provider of online education. we've been offering web-based courses since2001. we really enjoy working with you and yourmanagement companies to allow you to bring

more education to more people with less timeaway from your communities and your jobs. in addition to our courses, we offer a learningmanagement system, or lms, called "vision" to help you track all of your associates'training efforts and you'll find previews of our online courses, which includes ourmost popular titles, "fair housing" and "fair housing for maintenance". those are both available in both english andspanish. you'll find those previews online at gracehilllearning.com. enough about grace hill, let's get to themain event. it's my pleasure to give you a little bitof background information about our presenter

today, doug chasick. doug chasick is the apartment doctor. he's a lifelong learner with a passion forrestoring rental health to the multifamily industry. he's got over 37 years of investment realestate experience. he began as the resident manager of a 524-unitapartment property, and he's been the president or ceo of five real estate companies responsiblefor portfolios of over 28,000 apartments, more than 8 million square feet of commercialretail and industrial properties. a nationally recognized speaker and author,doug was awarded his cpm in 1979 and was a

member of the irem national faculty for eightyears. he is a senior instructor member of the naaeifaculty, leading the advanced instructor training course and naaei designation courses. a licensed real estate broker in florida andgeorgia, he is also a licensed expert fair housing instructor in the commonwealth ofvirginia and the recipient of the 2010 naaei apartment career and education award and the2010 legends of the industry award from multifamily professional and the annual brainstormingsessions. as you can see, doug has a lot of expertiseto offer here today and we've asked him to present on what i think is a really populartopic.

doug, it's such a pleasure to have you asa part of our webinar series. thank you so much for being here with us andi'm going to let you take it away. doug: kara, thank you very much. welcome, everyone. happy new year. today, is a very special day because we havegot an amazing opportunity in the multifamily i want to give you our two words for wednesday. these are the wednesday words for our hourtogether. please remember these and listen to the conversationthrough these words.

the words are "authentic" and "genuine" -- authenticand genuine. the reason that those two words are so importantbecause the first thing that we'll discuss today is that there are no shortcuts. our business is all about relationships -- allabout relationships. next, we'll take a look at the fact that therereally are almost no price objections. i have one little sort of asterisk for thatfor those of you who manage affordable housing. i'm sorry. you do get price objections, but we're goingto take a look at that. next, let's look at how and why every homeis unique.

finally, once we've gone through that information,i will share with you some strategies for maximizing income and strengthening your residentretention. these webinars, i attend a lot of these andthey're really nice and when i get off the phone, i have a bunch of notes and then allof a sudden life shows up and i didn't get to do everything that i just learned and thati got excited about and that i wanted to take action on. then the next day, the notes get buried underan increasingly bigger pile of paper, and pretty soon, i forget the valuable hour ispent learning some new things. today, let's make sure these notes don't getburied.

i'm going to share with you some strategiesso that the minute you get off the phone, you can start putting some of them into action. but first, why does this matter? well, i mentioned that we have an amazingopportunity. right now, as of the end of 2012, variousstatistical reporting companies have told us that the national vacancy average is about5%, 5.1%. during the year 2012, the average rental increase,annual increase, was between 6 and 7%. here are the top 5 cities in 2012, what theiroccupancies were and what their rent increases were.

now, it sometimes is kind of difficult totake a look at these numbers when we are hearing all the doom and gloom news about the economy. yet, i'm sitting in a hotel this morning holdingup a usa today headline and it says "housing set to give economy a boost in 2013: afteryears of being a drag, home sales show strong rise". well, that's good news for realtors, but whatabout us? on your screen now, you're looking at whathappened in manhattan. this is pretty much the most expensive placefor an apartment in the country. if you take a look at some of these prices,they are amazing.

i want to point out, though, that from octoberof 2012 to november, 2012, the rents actually decreased a little bit. i'll get to why in a moment. but first, let's take a look at all the differentrents in manhattan. if you focus on that three-bedroom column,i hope you're sitting down because those numbers are just staggering. imagine paying $6,636 a month for a three-bedroomapartment -- pretty amazing, pretty amazing. now, how does that fit into what we're doing? well, the national average, according to reisreports for average monthly rent was $1,044.

so, well below these. i'm sure there were places in the countrywhere rents were $300 or $400. here's the thing that really struck me, though. i looked up the ratio of rent to after-taxmortgage payments -- the ratio of rent to after-tax mortgage payments. for the third quarter, that's the last numberthat was being reported, it was 107.8%. now, what does that mean? that is an indicator of when it becomes moreexpensive to rent than to buy. when it's over 100, that means you shouldbe buying instead of renting.

just to put that in perspective, since 1991,that ratio has averaged 85%. right now, it's 107.8%. what does all of this mean? it's very simple, folks. the builders are coming. for some of you, you're already seeing thedirt flying, aren't you? we've got a situation where we're pushingrents very vigorously where occupancy is very high and where for some people with the lowinterest rates and now credit is loosening up a little bit so that people are qualifyingeasier for mortgages, the builders show up.

we are on the up-cycle. this is the perfect opportunity for us tostrengthen our resident base and to make the replacements we want to make and to bringthose apartment homes up to the market rent so when the builders, when the new stuff startsopening up, that we are in the most competitive position that we can be. let's take a look at what the builders aredoing. for this year, it is projected that the multifamilyhousing starts will be about 250,000 units. to put that in a little bit of perspective,in 2012, there were 210,000 starts and 140,000 apartment homes were absorbed -- so, obviouslysome excess inventory.

now we're going to dump another 250,000 unitson top of that and the demand is estimated to increase to about 175,000. again, what does that do? it builds up the surplus and it moves it froma seller's market to a buyer's market. when you look at what's in your future, whatyou see is a situation where the economy is generally improving. there's going to be a lot of inventory. there's going to be some more downward pricepressure and people will still be seriously looking at the choice of buying a home orrenting an apartment.

what does all that mean? well, let's pause for a moment here and aimee,if you would put up the first poll, please? aimee: all right. i will. let me go ahead and do that. doug: okay. aimee: this one is an interesting one. can you guys hear me okay? i'm going to launch this poll.

this one says, "for residents who move outby choice, the number one reason for moving is . . ." you can choose one of the following. what do you think their number one reasonfor moving out is? they don't feel appreciated, they're not satisfiedwith the maintenance, the price is too high, they don't like their neighbors. choose one of these options and we'll showwhat everybody has said. i'm going to go ahead and wait for everybodyto vote. we do have a full house today, so if you havefriends who are asking you about if they can't get on to the webinar, you should invite themto come sit with you at your computer.

we are maxed out and very busy. doug, one quick note for you -- there havebeen a few people who are feeling like your voice is going in and out. so, just get a little bit closer to the microphoneis one little request. doug: oh, okay. thank you. sorry about that. aimee: no problem. i'll go ahead and close the poll and sharethe results here.

let's see what everybody thought. for residents who move out by choice -- so,27% of our audience felt they move out because they don't feel appreciated. forty-six percent of our audience think theymove out because the price is too high. twenty-three percent of our audience thinksthat they are not satisfied with the maintenance. and a very small 3% think that they move outbecause they don't like their neighbors. doug, tell us the answer. what's the reason? why do they move out?

doug: very interesting. thanks for sharing the data and thanks everybodyfor voting. survey says -- they don't feel appreciated. the national multifamily housing council hasdone an annual survey. up until two years ago, the number one reasonwhy people who had a choice about moving moved was because they were not satisfied with maintenance. as of two years ago, last year and the yearbefore, the number one reason became that the customer does not feel appreciated. the customer feels like we take them for granted.

the customer doesn't feel special. oh, the poor baby doesn't feel special. well, guess what? the poor baby who doesn't feel special paysour salary. we need to talk about relationships becauseit's all about relationships. when we're looking at relationships, rememberthose two words, authentic and genuine? this is all about showing your care for yourcustomer. it really is because it's a very interestingthing. we can talk about, "well, we feel this way,"or, "we feel that way," or, "look at all the

things we're doing for you," or, "look athow phenomenally wonderful our community is," and the truth is that it's all a matter ofperception by our customer. it's all about what our customer perceives. when we have a perception among us that thebiggest reason that people move is because the price is too high, what is that reallytelling us? that really says to me not so much about price. again, if you're on a tax credit deal, i knowthe price is the controlling factor, but for those of us who are managing market rate conventionaldeals, consider this: it's not about price. it's about value.

when someone says, "oh, the price is too high,"i suggest that they're really saying, "hey, i don't think i'm getting my money's worth. i don't see where i'm getting my money's worth." people don't see where they get their money'sworth when they don't feel like they're in a relationship with you. so, what are we going to do? i think we ought to diagnose our relationship. now, back in 1988, a fellow named harvey mackaywrote, i think it was his first book, it may have been his second book.

the name of the book was "swim with the sharkswithout being eaten alive." it was a great book. it's still relevant today. in that book, he published the mackay 66. it's a questionnaire. harvey mackay worked for an envelope company. he was a salesman. he went out and called on companies to sellthem stationary goods. he created this checklist of 66 questionsthat he felt like he needed that information

to create a relationship and to build rapportwith his prospects and his customers to maintain that relationship after they became customersand to have it be personal. i took the liberty of looking at the mackay66 and adapting it to ask some questions. i know everybody is on mute. so, obviously you don't need to answer itout loud. but please consider these questions in termsof what do you know about your customers. the folks that are living in your communityright now, what do you know? for example, what was the last contact? when did you last speak to each -- that'sright, i said each -- of your customers and

why? was it because their rent was late or theirlease was expiring or did you talk to them because you just talked to them because youjust wanted to see how they were doing? do you know the names of everybody's kids? every customer's kids, do you know their names? yeah? do you know their birthdays? do you know their hobbies? how about their kids' favorite colors?

do they have pets? what are the names of their pets? what kind of car do they drive? do you know the last time your customers wenton vacation and where they went? when they go visit their folks during theholidays, where do they go? "come on, doug, this is ridiculous. why would anybody want to know this?" well, what do you talk to them about? do you talk to them about annual absorptionrates of new construction?

do you talk to your customers about, "howare you doing today?" to which most people are conditioned to say, "fine," because theyknow we really don't care anyway. do you have a real genuine, authentic relationshipwith each of your customers because, ladies and gentlemen, it's not the amenities thatkeep them there. it's not even the price that keeps them thereunless they are in some severe financial distress. it's you and your team and the relationshipthat you have with your customers that keeps them there. kara mentioned that i started out managinga 524-unit community. it was actually a 524-unit swinging singlescommunity.

so, it was clearly way earlier than 1988. i did that for two years. then i was recruited to manage a 949-unitcommunity for three years. so, i spent five years on site before i starteddoing multi-site management and i know what goes on on site. i know what starts the morning off for usand what is grabbing at us and what makes us crazy about all the different stuff wehave. and then there's twitter. there are some myths that we have got to bust,with an homage to "mythbusters" of course.

the first is that multitasking works. come on, be honest. multitasking doesn't work. how often have you had to go back and redosomething that you were multitasking while you were on the computer and on the phoneand waving people into your office and writing something down and tweeting something offyour smartphone and eating a tuna fish salad sandwich. i like to use this job description to focusme. when i'm doing all these different things,i have all these different stimuli competing

for my attention, i like to remember why igot out of bed in the morning. you may want to jot this down. our job -- if you're a multifamily professional,it doesn't matter what your title is, your job is the same. that's my opinion. that job description is one sentence. "our job is to maintain and enhance the valueof the asset." to maintain and enhance the value of the asset. you have to ask yourself this question.

"is what i'm doing contributing to the maintenanceand/or the enhancement of the asset?" if not, why am i doing it? now, ladies and gentlemen, i'd like you toanswer for yourself this question. what is more important in maintaining andenhancing the value of the asset than retaining your best customers? if there's something more important, thenokay, you should be doing it. i say that the more of those folks that you'reable to keep, the more you're contributing toward the value of the asset. aimee: hey, doug?

doug: i'm sorry? aimee: doug, it's aimee, i have a question. i have a couple of questions that have comein, if i can interrupt. doug: please. aimee: there are a couple of people sayingthat this concept sounds really good in theory, but how could they possibly do it with theselarger properties with 1,800 units or 500 and something units? do you have any tips for how to do it whenyou're managing tons of people? doug: yes.

i have two tips. the first tip is delegation. train some of your staff to do the contact. as the manager on an 1,800-unit property,i don't say it's impossible, but it would be unwieldy at best and it would be aboutas impossible as you could make it without surrendering. great question. delegate, train the staff. i will be talking a little later on aboutwho our property evangelists should be.

they go by the title of "maintenance professionals"because they're the folks who have the closest relationship with our customers. i still think it's imperative that peoplein the office participate in this process as well. the way to do it is reverse engineer it. if you were going to talk to each of thosecustomers once every couple of months and the conversation is going to be about twominutes -- so, aimee, i don't have a calculator handy. do you have a calculator?

let's do the math real quick. let's take 1,800 times 2 is 3,600. aimee: hold on. i'm getting there, 1,800 times 2. doug: eighteen hundred times 2 is 3,600, dividedby 60 is what? aimee: 60. wait, sorry. doug: so, is that 6 hours? aimee: no.

it's 60. so, it's 60 hours. and we have 1,800 people. so, perhaps we do 10 a day and we knock themout. now, if we have 5 people in the office, eachone does 2 a day. all of a sudden you're going to invest 10minutes a day for 5 staff people and you'll be contacting. remember, some of these folks don't want aphone call. some of these folks want a text.

some of these folks want an email. we want to communicate with them the way theywant to be communicated with. otherwise, instead of it being a positiveexperience, it will be annoying. some of it may just be a quick text. some of it may just be an email, but not anauto-text, not a regularly scheduled email. it's got to be personal. it's got to be genuine and authentic. i hope that helps break that down into somethingmore manageable. have it be everybody's job.

does that make sense? aimee: yeah. i think that's a great point, have it be everybody'sjob. all right. perfect. is there another one? i think we're good. we can keep going for a little bit. well, what i want to stress here before imove on is that this is the perfect opportunity

to retain our great residents and to replacethe rotten residents. i mean, it's really that simple. i know some folks, one of the biggest barriersthat i find for rents not being raised is that we look at those residents that havebeen with us 8, 10, 12, 14 years and over the years they've been so good and they payon time and they take care of their apartment and they refer a couple of people to us eachyear and that's wonderful. i value them dearly. i truly do. and this is a business.

over the course of those 8 or 10 or 12 years,all of a sudden they're $200 or $300 or $400 under market. even at $200 under market with rental rateswhat they are today, if you replace them, you just increased the rent from $2,400, evensubtract out your term costs and your days vacant and you're probably $1,000 to $1,500ahead of the game depending on where you are. "where are they going to go? they've been with us. they've been loyal." yes, that's wonderful.

that's just so valuable and it's a business. this is what the price is. please remember, we have owners and thoseowners often times have investors. those investors are living off the incomethat you generate by keeping your apartments at market rate. pretty soon -- and for some of your rightnow -- you are going to be competing with bright and shiny and smells real good apartments,aren't you? this is the time to really strengthen yourresident base, the folks that you want to stay, work with them to keep them in placeand the rest of them, you replace them before

the next concession wars start. that's just the way it is. water is wet. rocks are hard. we're going to be back in the land of specialsbefore you know it. aimee, let's put up that second poll now,please. aimee: okay. no problem. when considering how much to pay for an apartmenthome, the most important factor is what do

you think? location, size of the apartment, number andtype of amenities or perception of value? let's see what our audience thinks today. while they're doing it, let me ask you a questionbecause another one came in and i think it's a good question. jason asks, "can doug comment on any organizationalstructuring that he's seen over the years which may hinder one's success in managingemployees, residents and workload? maybe some commonly seen red tape which eatsup time for property managers." doug: that is a great question, jason, thanks.

aimee, thanks for sharing that question. i think the single largest barrier is policiesfor policies sake, the unwillingness to trust the on-site staff to do what they were hiredto do. that, unfortunately, can only be resolvedby letting people do their jobs. maybe that requires a little bit more training. maybe it requires a little bit more shuffling. as jim collins says in "good to great," "themost successful companies have the right people in the right seat on the right bus." unfortunately, there are still a lot of folksin our industry who are in supervisory positions

that refuse to accept the fact that all noiis local. all noi is local. if i'm a regional manager or a vice presidentor a president of a company and i'm sitting here in fort lauderdale, florida and i amdirecting every move that a manager in atlanta, georgia is making, it's only a matter of timebefore that manager and that asset fails. that manager must know more than i do andthat manager must be trusted to direct his team to produce the result. if i won't let go, it's not going to work. the answer is all noi is local and in a hierarchyin a typical pyramid-type organizational structure,

we always have to be managing the people aboveus as well as the folks who report to us. if you're not trusted to do your job, thenperhaps you're not on the right bus. great. jason said, "awesome answer. thank you." doug: my pleasure. you're welcome. aimee: perfect. while you were talking, i put up the resultsof the poll.

so, 77% of our audience said that perceptionof value is the most important factor when considering how much to pay for an apartmenthome. fifteen percent said location and very smallpercentages, 5% said size of the apartment and 3% of our audience felt that the numberand type of amenities was the most important factor. what do you think? doug: excellent. the survey says wow, what a great, smart audiencewe have today, aimee. aimee: oh, good.

doug: it's a beautiful thing. yeah. it's perception because, listen, the threemost important things about real estate are location, location, location. it doesn't change. if somebody decided that there was a fourthimportant aspect of real estate, i would bet -- and i'm not a gambler, but i would beton this one, sure thing -- the fourth most important element would be . . . yes, location. so, we've got location handled.

they're already living there. reality is perception, ladies and gentlemen,and perception is reality. here is the part where we get in trouble becausewe're so excited. we love where we live. we love where we work. we love this community and you should too. not necessarily. reality is perception. perception is reality.

it only matters what they, our customer, think. it's all about them. they value what they want. they don't automatically value what we wantthem to value. we love it, but that doesn't mean they do. that brings us to price objections. again, my apologies to our section 42 loansand housing tax credit members of the audience, this does not apply to you. please listen anyway, though.

value is in the eye of the beholder. it's in the wallet of the beholder. people value what they want and what theyneed, not what we think they should want or what they should need. think about it. everybody likes to shop. everybody likes to buy, but nobody likes tobe sold because when we shop and when we buy, we control. when we're sold, somebody else is controlling.

it's interesting. i'm sure many of you have discovered thisfor yourselves. when you are talking to somebody, whetheryou're on the phone or that come into your office and you say, "tell me, what are thetwo or three most important things that you're looking for in your new apartment home?" they kind of give you that deer in the headlightslook. they don't always know. part of our job as leasing professionals andas multifamily professionals is to support these folks in narrowing down what exactlythey want and what they need.

if we embrace the true definition of sales,the true definition of sales is identifying a need and filling it. if we really get that, then how can we fillan unknown need? no guessing. it's not about what we think they need. it's what they say they need. we have to work with them. we have to support them. the way you do that is ask them.

i like to do a little bit of a reverse question. i ask them the two or three things that theyare looking for in their new apartment home. then they give me that look. i say, "i understand how stressful movingis. i know this is an enormous hassle and a bigdrain on your resources and your patience is wearing thin. let me ask you this. if you could change two or three things aboutwhere you live now, what would you change?" well, folks, let me tell you.

you just opened up the floodgates. they know exactly what's wrong with wherethey live, starting, by the way, with us, the staff. they can go on for hours about what's wrongand what they would change. let's take a look at why people buy becausethat's what moves this conversation from a commodity of whose price is lower to a valueconversation of, "what's in it for me and am i getting my money's worth?" the way we do that is we look at why peoplebuy. well, people buy when you save them time.

people buy when you save them money. people buy when you save them energy. why do you buy things? why did you just replace something? because probably it stopped saving you timeand/or money and/or energy. that's what motivates us. here's the question for you to look at. how does living at your community save somebodytime, money or energy? that is what's going to cause them to leasea home at your community if they don't already

live there or to renew their lease if theydo already live there. make no mistake about it. you could have been the most genuine, authentic,caring, professional, prompt, courteous person on the planet today. guess what you get to do tomorrow? do over. start all over again. enjoy it while you've got it because tomorrowis a new day. don't think that because you established thiswhen they moved in they were always thinking

about it. when it comes down to renewal, they need tobe reminded. they need to be re-closed. otherwise that renewal letter only does onething. it reminds them, "hey, time to go shopping." let me tell you, the way that the market iscontinuing to strengthen, the fact that the builders are coming in, this is not a timewhen you want your best residents out there shopping because there will be deals to behad. so, how does living in your community savetime, save money, save energy?

aimee: doug? there's one more question that's come up. aimee: it's a little bit related to this topic,but it's around distressed properties. do you have any tips for managing distressedproperties so that they embrace possibly raising the rents without giving concessions? do you have any tips on how to manage it whenthe property isn't as fantastic? doug: i have been there. i think i still have the t-shirt, the distressedproperty champion. that's certainly a situation.

i find that when the market is moving theway it's moving right now, the distressed property can feel left out. it's like, "where are my goodies?" turnaround situations and distressed properties,one of the things that i had to embrace was i can't do it all at once. when i say that, i mean literally to the pointwhere i remember one apartment community that we only had enough money to paint the sidesof the buildings that face the road, literally. what we did was we relocated residents intothe buildings that faced the road because we knew that's where we would address allthe deferred maintenance first.

if you have an 8 or a 12-plex, people don'twant to be the only one living there. they go out to get their mail ad they go,"what's the matter? is this place haunted? what's the deal?" we would move people into it so that you'donly have three or four vacants. we'd pay for the move because it was a marketingexpense. we'd paint the one side. then as we got another resident, we'd paintanother side. we would do it literally one building at atime.

part of the answer to this question is ournext topic, that it's unique. our mindset, when we think about leasing ata distressed property and we look at that the property is not keeping pace with whatelse is in the market and it's kind of beat up so there should be a discount, i have noissue in that kind of situation of giving an introductory offer of getting people into build up my cash flow of just being honest. "yeah, i know we're 15 years old and the lawnlooks really lousy. so, we're going to give you this break withthe understanding that at the end of your lease here's what the renewal rate is goingto be." i'm going to work with them so that i'm buildingup the cash flow.

i'm not going to give away a month on a 12-monthlease but maybe i'm going to give away a couple of hundred dollars. one of the easiest ways to do that is to transferthe money that you're expecting for a security deposit into rent. that means your qualification process hasto be just totally ironclad, but you're able to reduce the how much down part of the equationand let them focus on how much a month. it requires patience and most of all, it requiresan attitude of no alternatives that we're going to do it one apartment at a time, onefloor at a time, one building at a time. the other buildings are going to sit thereand be ugly for a while and that's just the

way that it is. i can't do all the buildings. i fill it up one apartment at a time and ifi have to do a little work with them, but i'm always going to be talking about the valuethat the staff -- because really, that's what people are buying. once they pick out the zip code, they're buyingus. let me expand about that. it's going to coincide with the next slidehere. then we'll circle back and if there's anotherquestion or a follow up, i'm happy to take

it. is that okay? yes? sounds good. doug: all right. now think about your community, everybody. just close your eyes for a moment and thinkabout your community and answer this question to yourself. in your community, whether it's 8 units or1,800 units, are there any 2 apartment homes

that are exactly the same? let me stress the word exactly the same. are there any 2 apartment homes that are exactlythe same? in case there's some little voice in yourhead saying "yes", thank that little voice for sharing because the answer is no. it's impossible unless you have somehow gotthe particle accelerator over in your clubhouse and you have now breached the laws of physics. two objects can't occupy the same space. every single apartment is different.

it may be just a little difference. it may be just a five-degree angle differencein the view. it may be this one has got a countertop that'sdinged up. but they're all unique. now, if they're all unique, why are most ofthem priced the same? why are most of them priced the same? why are all the two-bedroom lido upstairs$800 and the two-bedroom lido downstairs is $825, no matter whether they're in this buildingor that building. in some cases, it doesn't even matter if they'rea corner apartment.

if you have 200 apartment homes, you shouldhave 200 prices, really. i know that drives the accounting people crazy,but that's the deal. everything is unique. now, some of you have lro. some of you have realsource. some of you have that pricing software. that can give you some advantage. however, please remember the age old law ofcomputers -- gigo, garbage in, garbage out. all of that software is only as good as thedata we feed it.

so, the data has got to be spot on accurate. well, if each apartment home is unique andeach apartment home has its own price, then we need to take a closer look at unique. so, wait, what is it? it's a bird. it's a plane. it's a unique selling proposition. ladies and gentlemen, what is your uniqueselling proposition? what is it that your community has that nobodyelse has?

what is it? i'll tell you one thing. the first answer that should pop into yourhead is you and your team are what's unique. you and your team are nowhere else. you're right there. that is why people live there. i know you've heard it 1,000 times. so now here's 1,001 times, and it's true. when people are looking at moving, when peopleare looking at staying, they're looking at

you. most of our residents have lived in anotherapartment community. they know the deal. some of our residents know more about ourbusiness than we do. they know what they're going to do when they'reon the phone and we want them to come in for an appointment. they know that that's on our script. you've got to make them come in for an appointmentbecause that's what they learned in telephone leasing 101, get the appointment.

they know all the stuff. they know all the tricks. i'll tell you what they don't usually know. they don't usually know genuine and authenticbecause we're too busy to care. i'll keep saying it until you hang up. it's all about genuine. it's all about authentic. it's all about relationships. doug: what is it that's unique about yourcommunity, folks?

think about it for a minute. jot it down. once you have it, then you can dare to compare. aimee: doug, real quick . . . doug: sure. aimee: we have another really good questionthat i think kind of flows with what you were just saying. an audience member, gabriel is asking, "couldyou please shed some light on some great tactics or ways to build opening content and conversationswith residents when you're trying to genuinely

make this kind of a connection without havingthem feel like it's just this sort of standard follow-up procedure?" are there any quick tactics or tips you canshare with the audience for that kind of a conversation? doug: that's a great question, gabriel, thanks. i would tell you that when you be gabrielthat is talking to doug, another human, instead of gabriel, the manager or the leasing professional,talking to doug, another resident, it kind of works itself out. when i talk to another person, i say thingslike, "hi, gabriel, how are you doing?"

and i stop. i stop because i really want to know, gabriel,how are you doing? maybe you're not doing so well today. i opened the door. tell me. i care. if you start telling me you're having a rattyday, i'm going to listen. but most people, the conversation . . . iwas telling somebody the other day, the conversations now are, "hi."

"fine." it used to be, "hi." "hi." "how are you?" now it's, "hi. what happened to the other part? it's gone. i'm too busy. i can't afford it.

i am speaking in twitter. so, the first thing is be gabriel. ask people if they have a minute. "hey, do you have a minute?" then remember our little list of what do youknow? you'll know when it's a kid's birthday. you'll know where they went on vacation orthat they're going on vacation. you'll know what they're doing as people outsideof their job as your customer, and you can talk to them about that because you are callingthem to find out how they're doing.

gabriel and everybody, i know this may sounda little optimistic, but i swear, i have done remember, i did this for five years on-siteand it works. it really, really, really works. when you talk to people like people and youshow a genuine concern and you do what you're supposed to do as their landlord, you don'tever have to ask a closing question. they will ask you, "oh, by the way, when ismy lease up? i want to renew." i know that sounds crazy, but try it. what have you got to lose?

my advice is be yourself and talk to otherpeople as people and do your job and people will renew. when you identify a need with a new customerand then you have what they need, there's no, "if i could, would you close?" there's, "okay, let's start the paperwork." "great." so, i hope that's helpful. doug: dare to compare. once you have discovered what's unique -- ilove this method because if we look at that

average rent, if we look at that average rent,i think i said it was $1,400. i'm not a real math genius, but that's about$17,000 a year. i'm sorry, $1,044. so, let's call that $12,000 a year. you spend 10 minutes on the phone with meand a half hour touring and then i want you to commit to living with me for a year andspending $12,000. does it border on unreasonable? i suggest it does. i want them to go look around.

i want them to see how much better my teamis and my community than the others. notice what i said first -- my team. my team and my community. the community, the sticks and bricks, areimportant. what do you have that other communities don'thave? you know who your comps are. what do you have that they don't have? this list should only include what you havethat they don't have. it's the only time you will ever hear me sayit's okay to talk about features, the only

time, because it's the only way this exerciseworks is to compare features to features. dare to compare on your unique selling proposition. our last poll, aimee, if you would put itup. i kind of gave this one away, but let's gofor it, please. here we go. this one is, "the staff person most qualifiedto renew leases is . . ." your on-site property manager, the regional manager, the leasingprofessional or your maintenance supervisor? who is the staff person that's most qualifiedto renew the lease? i'll ask a question while we're getting allthe information because we're getting lots

of different questions in here. there have been a couple questions that arerelated to kind of managing through problem residents and how to know when it's worthit to work on retaining them versus when to kind of cut the cord and that it's betterto let go. i know it's probably complicated and verydependent on the specific situation. but any tips for that kind of scenario? how do you know? doug: unfortunately, that's a whole webinarin itself. doug: let me give you a real quick answer.

the quick answer is segmenting your customers. which of your customers are highest maintenance,lowest return? which of your customers are lowest maintenance,highest return? in other words, which customers take up mostof your time and cost you the most money? which customers take up most of your time,cost you the least money? which customers take up the least amount oftime and cost you the least money? i want the low maintenance, high return customers,the customers who ask for what they're entitled to but who contribute. i don't want the people who are whining.

i don't want the people who are constantlycomplaining and never satisfied. i don't want the people who are running offtheir neighbors. i don't care what they're paying. i want them gone because they are too highmaintenance and they are disruptive. i want the people who play well with others,pay their rent and truly enjoy living there. as we get back to a point where our apartmenthomes could easily become commoditized and become [inaudible 00:51:45] priced, the feelingof living in a great community . . . aimee: we're still here. doug: . . . great neighbors.

what have we got for numbers? aimee: i showed it. the staff person most qualified to renew leases-- 46% of our audience said it's the on-site property manager, 34% say a leasing professional,19% think it's the maintenance supervisor and only 1% chose regional manager. doug: yeah. i don't know what happens with those regionalmanagers. we love you but we're not letting you nearthe customer, sorry. i would tell you that it's your maintenanceteam because your maintenance team spends

the most time with your customers. your maintenance team has the deepest relationshipwith your customers. the maintenance team is in their apartmentsthe most, talking to them and their kids, seeing what's going on, chatting about nothingwhile they're fixing something. all you need to do is send them for some fairhousing training and some customer service training and i promise you the renewals willjust start flowing in. i know we're approaching the top of the hour. let me cover these strategies to maximizeincome and to strengthen retention. number one, usp -- you have got to identifywhat's unique and focus on what's unique at

your community. every home is uniquely priced. you want to have a specific price for eachhome. now, you know what? in some markets, that means your one-bedroomswill be more expensive than your two-bedrooms because you've got a three-month waiting listfor your ones and you can't give away a two. by the way, if you can't give away a two ina strong one-bedroom market, get rid of it. it now is a one-bedroom with a den or a one-bedroomwith a home office. but it's okay.

it's okay. increase the price of the ones, drop the priceof the twos. it all levels out. dare to compare. create your dare to compare if you have aunique selling proposition. don't let it backfire, though. if you don't have a unique selling proposition,if you can't send them out to look for something that only you have, then just don't use thattool. finally, round up.

now, some folks go, "well, this is silly." you know what? it is silly, but let me illustrate. if your rents end in a 5, your rent is $845a month, if you increase it to $849 a month, nobody notices. but guess what? $4 a month times 12 months is $48. at a six-cap, you just added $800 of valueto the community. so, round your rents up, please.

how do i strengthen my retention? well, you strengthen your retention by strengtheningyour relationships. the way you do that is survey, survey, survey. not beating them to death with surveys, butevery couple of months, you should be asking people what they want, and if you're contactingall your residents on a regular basis, then you can also inquire on a one to one basis. make house calls. it doesn't make any sense to me that whenwe want something from people, we summon them into our office.

go to them. visit your residents at their homes. stop making them come in. there's another benefit there. when you visit them in their home, you maydiscover, "i'm not giving this one a renewal letter." maintenance does renewals. please consider it. it doesn't have to be everybody on the maintenanceteam, but think about what i said and think

about what kind of training it would taketo have them go out there and do that. warm calls, older than i am and yet they stillwork. i like to say calling people for no apparentreason. just calling them to find out how they'redoing or texting them or knocking on the door, however they want to be communicated with. finally, ladies and gentlemen, pay attention. when you're talking to somebody, talk to them. stop everything else. there's a saying that the best sales peopleknow how to say goodbye before they say hello.

what that means is the best sales people knowhow to say goodbye to what they're doing before they say hello to what they're going to do. here's the question. "you know the question, neo." the question is what are you going to do withwhat you heard today and when are you going to do it? only you can answer that question. this only works when you use it. folks, thank you so much for being here.

please remember, it's all about relationships. there are no price objections. well, almost. every home is unique and use those strategies,use the ones that are applicable to your community and you will raise your rents and increaseretention. aimee, back to you. thank you, doug. we've got amy, who's just committed that she'sgoing to work on her relationships. thank you, amy.

i'm going to work on mine too. always good advice. lots of questions about recording. we recorded this webinar, so please don'tworry. you'll get access to it. lots of love for the webinar too. lots of people really enjoyed it. so, thank you so much doug and kara as well. i want to remind everybody that as you exitout, you're going to be offered a survey.

so, please let us know how today's event was. let us know if you're interested in learningmore about grace hill or appfolio property manager, that's always great. we will make sure that you get access to reviewthis webinar once again. thanks so much everybody and hope you allhave a great day. doug: thanks, aimee, kara, and thanks everybody. kara: thank you, doug, and thanks everyonewho attended. pleasure to spend time with you today. we'll see you next month, i hope.

thanks, everybody.