With our co-hosts Grace Hill and IREM, we hosted a informative webinar titled “Secrets of Successful Property Management Companies” featuring David Meit, President and CEO of Oculus Realty, LLC.
David is a fantastic presenter and this webinar was packed with several tips and ideas of ways you can improve the overall success of your property management business. David believes that reputation and experience is what it takes to be a successful company and you need to live and breathe the firm you are working for.
In an audience poll, we found out that 40% of our audience is not currently involved in local trades associations! One or many takeaways from this webinar was how important relationship building is and how essential it is to network inside and outside of your industry.
Below is the recorded version of the webinar and the presentation slides that David agreed to share with participants so they had access to all of the great content.
Don’t miss out on our next complimentary webinar, Multifamily Trends & Predictions from Axiometrics. Click here to register.
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Any suggestions or guidance on finding a PR firm that is affordable?
It’s important to network and network outside of your industry. Find out were the marketing people are going and show up and you’ll meet all of the PR people – and start building those relationships.
In your presentation you mentioned providing iPhones and iPads to your staff, can you explain how you approach that?
Everybody on our Managements staff has iPhones in order to easily communicate. All of the service requests are also delivered to them via their phone and that’s an important tool that helps us always know what’s going on. Our property managers have iPads and one of the reasons we went with AppFolio is because we were looking for Property Management software that we could run on our iPads – we can be in a residents apartment, look up there account, run a report, send a email. Do all the things via mobile because if our managers are in our offices we aren’t doing our job.
We hosted a fantastic webinar today with Grace Hill, featuring Nadeen Green, Senior Counsel from For Rent Media Solutions and co-presenter, Doug Chasick, “The Apartment Doctor.” The webinar was so popular that we reached our maximum attendance!
Nadeen and Doug covered many great topics on the evolving and expanding issues related to Fair Housing. Executives and managers learned what to look for as they ensure compliance across their organization.
Here’s the recorded webinar and the presentation slides so that you can reference this great content at your convenience.
Q&A Could it be a violation of the federal fair housing laws to have a community that will only rent to individuals 21 and over?
Some states protect “age” and depending on how they define that – old, young, any age – there it could be a problem. Because of the familial status protection, those 21 and over folks would have to be accepted even if they have children in all states.
What happens if we have a current resident whom is hoarding. Can they be asked to leave because of this?
No, a resident cannot be asked to leave because of hoarding, no more than a resident could be asked to leave because they are hearing impaired. If the condition of the premises becomes a risk to the resident or neighbors, then there is a duty on the part of the landlord to engage in an interactive dialogue with the hoarder and institute a plan for remedial activity. Note that this dialogue and plan execution could take days if not weeks or even months.
Are there requirements that must be considered by the local ordinance or codes when considering exotic type animals?
If it is against the law/code to have certain animals, then it is not reasonable to require the landlord to accept such. The person with an exotic service animal would have to see if a waiver is possible from the authorities and if that does happen, then the landlord would likely need to accept such.
If a resident informs you they have MCS (Mulitple Chemical Sensitivity), do you take it at face value? Do you have a right to ask for documentation?
Since they have disclosed the nature of the disability (which an applicant/prospect/resident is never required to do), and since it is not a visible disability, confirming that should be reasonable.
Is there a list of illnesses that are considered disabilities under Fair housing?
This is the definition from the HUD.gov website:
“Federal laws define a person with a disability as “Any person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities; has a record of such impairment; or is regarded as having such an impairment.”
In general, a physical or mental impairment includes hearing, mobility and visual impairments, chronic alcoholism, chronic mental illness, AIDS, AIDS Related Complex, and mental retardation that substantially limits one or more major life activities. Major life activities include walking, talking, hearing, seeing, breathing, learning, performing manual tasks, and caring for oneself.”
With our co-host Grace Hill, we hosted a fantastic webinar entitled “Property Management Deep Dive Into Yelp.com Reviews” featuring Darnell Holloway, head of Yelp’s Business Outreach Team.
Darnell is a fantastic presenter and this webinar was packed with great tips and insider information on how property managers can best utilize and manage Yelp reviews. Darnell shared some best practices on ways to handle reviews to protect business owners and the do’s and don’ts of responding to online reviews.
Did you know? Yelp has become the top destination for consumers to go when needing to find a great local business. Darnell shared several facts and tidbits related to how consumers, now more than ever, are relying on online reviews to make buying decisions and how businesses can leverage online reviews to achieve a strong online presence.
Below is the recorded version of the webinar and the presentation slides that Darnell agreed to share with participants so they had access to all of the great content.
We co-hosted a fantastic webinar with Zillow Rentals, featuring Leonard Baron, Real Estate Professor and writer for Zillow.
In this informative session Leonard shared his straightforward rental property cash flow metrics that help investors spot strong investment properties – the gems from the duds. Leonard also provided tips on how to spot a strong investment property and why prize properties are NO prize at all.
Did you know that less than 5% of investors don’t know how to calculate cash flow on real estate deals? Leonard generously offered to share his Investment Analysis Spreadsheet to help your business determine the total cash to invest and what “cash on cash” rate of return you project to earn. Find it here: http://professorbaron.com/default.asp?Home=CashFlow
Below is the recorded version of the webinar and the presentation slides that Leonard agreed to share with participants so they had access to all of the great content. Stay tuned for our new eBook that we’ll release with Leonard – coming soon!
We hosted a great webinar yesterday with Grace Hill and AppFolio, featuring Charity Zierten (Socially Engaged Marketing) a leading expert on social media for property management. This webinar covered everything you need to know about Pinterest: how your community can use a Pinterest Board, the types of boards and images that get the most views, and Pinterest etiquette best practices. Charity gave the audience several great tips on how to run successful Pinterest campaign including free online resources you can use to maximize your branding opportunities.
Below are the recorded webinar and the presentation slides with several questions we didn’t have time to answer.
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Are we able to delete a Pinterest board if it doesn’t work out for our company? Absolutely! Go here https://pinterest.com/settings/ and click Deactivate Account
How could a person find our apartment community on Pinterest? By using tags and sharing interesting content, people will naturally find your pins. It is a great idea to utilize your current social networking and email marketing campaigns to promote your new Pinterest page. When residents and prospects enter your office, be sure to let them know you have a Pinterest page and invite them to share pins and follow your page!
How can I see if my competition is posting on Pinterest? The search feature is pretty easy to use. In the upper left hand corner of Pinterest, enter the community name or keywords the community could be using. Try the property management group name. Perhaps the community is only a board on a Pinterest page. If that doesn’t bring anything up, you can always search by the community name + Pinterest in Google.
Are we able to remove comments by others on our pins if we don’t like them? You can flag comments and delete comments on your pins. Just click the X on the right side of the comment when you mouse over it.
How do we know if our customers use Pinterest? The only way to know is to ask! You can do this when they visit your leasing office, create a survey they complete, or you can search for keywords about your community and local area to determine if there are current users you can connect with.
Can you explain what a hash tag is used for and what it means? A hashtag (#) is a commonly-used way to highlight a topic or a phrase. For example, if I am pinning something about fashion, I may put in the description, “This is the best #fashion tip for a quick #hairstyle!” Hashtags are used on many social networking sites to make searching for a particular topic of interest easier. When you click on a hashtag, you are immediately taken to search results.
What is the best way to gain followers? The best way is to share interesting content and then comment, like and repin other peoples interesting content. Reciprocity lives and breathes online!
When you delete a pin, does it remove it from everyone else’s boards who repined it? Yes, it will remove the pin from everyone’s page that repinned it. However, it will not remove pins from those who may have downloaded and re-uploaded the pin. Once it is online, assume it will always be online.
How often should I pin content? Pinterest pins have a half-life of about a week, compared to Facebook’s 80 minutes. Start with 10-12 boards and schedule seven regular posts using Pingraphy.com. Saturday mornings and weekday evenings are the best times to pin for maximum exposure. Test that for a couple of weeks and increase or decrease your activity based on the response-level you receive.
For everyone interested in learning more, Pinterest offers resources for business page owners here: http://business.pinterest.com.
Click here to register for our next webinar, The Keys to Cash Flow Investment Analysis, Leonard Baron, real estate professor and writer for Zillow.
With our co-host Grace Hill, we hosted a fantastic webinar titled “Raising Rents Without Raising Turnover” featuring Doug Chasick, the Apartment Doctor. The webinar was so popular that we reached our maximum attendance! Doug is a great educator and has years of property management experience in the multifamily industry. Through his witty examples and memorable slides, we learned how important it is to build authentic and genuine relationships with our customers. Interestingly, the #1 reason residents move out by their own choice is because they don’t feel appreciated – but when you build value, you are able to increase the rent.
This webinar was packed with tips that you can put to work in your organization today. Here’s the recorded webinar and the presentation slides so that you can reference this great content at your convenience.
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One of Doug’s slides taught us that people buy when you save them time, money, or energy. We at AppFolio love this concept because that’s what our software is designed to do – help our customers increase profitability and efficiency so they run a more successful business. Contact us to learn more about AppFolio’s Property Management software and how we can help your business save time, money or energy this year.
We co-hosted a great webinar today with Grace Hill, featuring Darnell Holloway, Manager of Local Business Outreach at Yelp.com.
Darnell is a fantastic presenter and covered a lot of material in this webinar from outlining the Yelp basics to unlocking your free online business tools. He addressed the do’s and don’ts of responding to both positive and negative reviews with real world examples. Despite common perception, 80% of reviews on Yelp are positive and receive 3 stars or higher. Since 84 million people are using Yelp each month, it is a best practice to monitor your Yelp presence to achieve a strong reputation. You can let residents and owners know that you are on Yelp and encourage them to “check in” when they are on site. Darnell also highlighted that when the words “good customer service” were mentioned in a review, the posts consistently ranked higher with more stars.
Darnell directed the audience to biz.yelp.com for property management professionals interested in working on their Yelp account.
Below is the recorded version of the webinar and the presentation slides that Darnell agreed to share with participants so that they had access to all of the great content.
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The audience had so many great questions at the end of the webinar and we ran out of time to answer all of them. Below are some of the audience’s questions and Darnell’s answers:
Can you explain the review filtering process? We have some positive reviews that just never show up on Yelp!
First, let me just say that the reason consumers use Yelp – and in turn patronize businesses with good reputations there – is because they trust the content. That’s why Yelp takes a strong stance on content integrity and usefulness. We use automated software to decide which reviews should be highlighted on any given day. The software applies the same objective standard to every review and looks at a lot of different pieces of information. Reviews can become filtered or unfiltered at any time as it picks up new information.
It’s also important to point out that the filter affects both positive and negative reviews. It sometimes affects more positive reviews simply because Yelp users write more positive reviews in the first place. In other cases, it affects positive reviews that appear to have been solicited by business owners (a practice which may seem like a good way to generate more reviews, but which tends to create an unintentional bias). In any event, the filter affects both positive and negative reviews – feel free to check out a random sampling of businesses listed on Yelp to see for yourself. Beyond that our filtering system is one of the reasons why an average of 84 million consumers per month turn to Yelp as a useful source of information.
Do you have to have a paid account on Yelp to get positive reviews?
No, advertisers on Yelp pay for…well, ads. These clearly-labeled Yelp Ads appear in various places on the site including in a single spot at the top of our search results. Along with their ads, advertisers also get to add a photo slide show and video to their business page. Consumer reviews for advertisers are handled exactly the same as consumer reviews for all other non-paying businesses. So no, advertisers never get special powers to remove a negative review, add a positive one or move reviews around on their page.
Before we were aware of how important Yelp is, we received negative reviews. At this point they were posted a long time ago. Should we still respond? I’m concerned that the Yelper will be notified that we responded and hop back on saying, “look how long it takes these guys to respond!” What do you recommend?
You want to take each review on a case by case basis. You can still respond if there is something actionable, or something has changed (new staff, for example) which may address the original concerns in the review. You can also let the reviewer know that you only recently claimed your business owner’s account, and became aware of the situation. Beyond that, if you develop a consistent and diplomatic approach to responding to both positive and critical reviews, you will have more success over the longer term.
If I set up a Yelp business account, will I be notified when a review is posted?
You can update your e-mail notification settings by going to the “Account Information” section of your business owner’s account at biz.yelp.com.
We co-hosted a great webinar today with Grace Hill, featuring Steve Lefkovits, Executive Producer of the AIM Conference.
Steve recapped many of the highlights from the 2012 AIM Conference including the latest in Apartment Industry online marketing trends and the importance of creating a company social media policy. Steve covered a few of the items to look forward to for next year’s conference as well as a great discount code to receive $50 off of your AIM Conference 2013 registration. This code is good through December 14th, 2012. Code: webinar2013.
Below is the recorded version of the webinar and the presentation slides that Steve agreed to share with participants so that they had access to all of the great content.
We hosted a great webinar today featuring Bill Nye, CEO of Caviness & Cates Property Management in Fayetteville, NC. He is a graduate of Duke University and while serving in the United States Air Force graduated from the Prestigious Air Force Leadership School. He is a fantastic speaker and we are proud to have him as a customer too!
Bill uncovered the qualities of successful leadership and how you can “lead to succeed” in the property management industry. He used memorable real world examples of how values and virtue play a critical role in the sustained success of your career. Bill outlined the three levels of communication and how as you become a more experienced and disciplined leader, you can advance to “level one” conversation with your team members and staff. This webinar was packed with tips that you can put to work in your organization today.
Here’s the recorded webinar and the presentation slides so that you can reference this great content at your convenience.
