Many people who get into the business of owning rental property fail to realize that it is a business. They think of effortless property management as never having to do anything but cash the rent checks each month. What you should be doing as a landlord is taking steps to ensure that running your business is as simple and carefree as possible. It will involve some work on your part, especially in the beginning of your relationship with each residents. But the effort will make life much easier for you down the road, especially when it enables you to keep good renters long term.

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Networking is an important part of the job in almost every industry, and multi-family is no exception. But we understand that networking doesn’t come easy to everyone, so we put together a few tips on how you can maximize your networking skills.

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When looking to put an apartment on the market, leasing agents have a responsibility to make the property presentable before potential renters start to view it. Exercising best practices when preparing an apartment for renters will increase the chances of grabbing the eye of a buyer quickly, avoiding long waits on the market that could result in months of lost revenue. Agents and landlords should consider many details and aspects of an apartment when staging it for viewings, such as interior fixtures and floorplan layouts.

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A recycling program is a great way to help sustain the earth, but sometimes the hardest part is deciding where to begin. By creating a program for your residents, it can not only help the environment, but also build a sense of community and remove barriers that may prevent residents from recycling on their own.

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Happy Apartments.com Appreciation Week!

In honor of Apartments.com Appreciation Week, we wanted to thank all of you who have partnered with us and those of you who are considering us as an advertising solution in the future.  As a token of our gratitude, we are giving you a chance to win a brand new Amazon Kindle Fire!*

To win, all you have to do is to be the first to name the tagline of our new advertising campaign in the comments section below. Read More

While summer may be winding down, things are heating up in the marketing department at Apartments.com! We recently launched an integrated advertising campaign tagged with the line Find your perfect fit. The program plays off the positive feeling people experience when they’ve discovered precisely what they’re seeking in an apartment or potential new resident.  The ads feature a dominant green key representing the power of Apartments.com to unlock opportunities–providing a consistent and memorable graphic hook to help tie together all elements of the campaign.

While the new ads are fun and engaging, our goal is to increase exposure for you!  This summer and fall, the airwaves will be abuzz with Apartments.com.  In addition to print, millions of renters will hear and see our name across a variety of popular media channels, including:
-    Pandora Radio
-    XBOX Live
-    HollywoodLife.com
-    View our three television commercials on networks such as MTV, TBS, Comedy Central, E! and more! Read More

We hear it all the time – I just don’t have the time or energy to stay current with Google or I don’t know the first thing about Facebook marketing, or worst yet, I have a website, that’s all I need to do.

While my post will touch on the latter two points, I am not here to endorse Facebook or scold you for abandoning your website like a bad habit. My goal is to provide you with easy-to-implement pointers on how to build a solid yet simple website that is both search-engine and user friendly without making your web developer burn the midnight oil. Let’s dive right in. Read More

Raising the rent is a necessary reality in the life of a property manager.  If you never raised rents, you’d be out of business before too long.  With retention as a primary goal for many property managers, tackling this topic with residents is a difficult and uncomfortable conversation for many to have.  However, we learned last week, during the Training Series Live! webinar, hosted by Sarah Greenough (@SGreenough), SVP and CMO of Princeton Properties, there are ways of having these conversations.  The key to communicating a rent increase is to deliver the news in a confident, positive manner while keeping the resident’s perspective in mind.

Here are five tips Sarah covered to prepare you when having the talk with your residents: Read More

Kids these days. What do we really know about them? Well, these coming-of-age youths of Gen Y are more technologically evolved than preceding generations, which is evidenced by their behavior: co-dependent relationships with their mobile phones, addiction to social media and video games likely accessed from their tablet. And, apparently, they prefer renting an apartment over owning a home. That’s one of the factors cited by Reis for the historically low vacancy and high rents being seen in the U.S. right now.

In a recent Chicago Tribune article, Ryan Severino, senior economist at Reis, says This generation doesn’t hold home ownership on a pedestal the way prior generations did. Read More

This post was originally written by Kerry Sugrue, former Social Media Specialist at Apartments.com. 

It’s that time again.  Back to school!  If you have an apartment community near a college campus, then you are gearing up for the busiest time of year.  As soon as you get all of your 2011-2012 residents moved in, you have to start thinking about getting leases signed for next year.  I had the opportunity to chat with Kim Cory, Sales and Marketing Director for University Village, about marketing to students.  She offered five tips for reaching your key audience and having a positive presence on campus. Read More