"While some may want to declare the housing crisis over, consumer patterns of behavior are showing otherwise," said National Apartment Association (NAA) President Douglas Culkin. "The findings in this survey mirror what our members are seeing throughout the country, especially in areas of the country that are experiencing the first signs of economic recovery."

The independent survey of more than 2,000 U.S. adults, conducted by leading market research firm Harris Interactive®, also finds an increase from a 2008 survey in the number of adults noting the additional burden of major home repairs or maintenance as a primary benefit of renting a home vs. owning, 64 percent in 2010 compared to 57 percent in 2008.

"The simple fact remains that in a bad economy, people must make whatever changes necessary to improve their situation, especially if they have lost their job," Culkin said. "Sometimes this might mean moving to another city where there is more opportunity, and if you're tied to a mortgage, you don't have the same ease of mobility as you do if you lease your home."

Among the key findings in the National Apartment Association survey:

• Leasing rental property perceived as more favorable to holding a mortgage: 76 percent of adults feel that there are advantages to renting vs. owning in the current real estate market, an increase of 5 percent from 2008. 64 percent cited having no responsibility for major repairs or maintenance as the primary reason, followed by 50 percent who cited financial reasons such as not being impacted by an unpredictable real estate market(33 percent - an increase of 1 percent from 2008), and not being susceptible to foreclosure (tied at 33 percent).
   
• Renters are not eager to make a change this year: 60 percent of renters plan to continue renting their current residence or rent new residences within the next year. 12 percent of renters said they have plans to buy a new home this year and only 14 percent believe that buying a house is preferable to renting given the current state of the market.
   
• Homeowners tied down and staying put: 71 percent of homeowners will stay in their current home over the next year, mirroring almost exactly the response from 2008 (72 percent).
   
• Adults continue to experience economic backlash from the foreclosure crisis: 93 percent of adults feel that the financial security of homeowners is more or equally affected by the current state of the housing market - no change from 2008 - illustrating that the economic impact of the foreclosure crisis has not shifted or improved.

"The results are yet to be seen if the tax-credit incentives worked, but the larger issue remains that pushing the idea of homeownership as the only way to achieve the American Dream is not a viable strategy for the future," NAA's Culkin said.

About the Survey
This survey was conducted online within the United States by Harris Interactive on behalf of the National Apartment Association between May 3, 2010, and May 5, 2010, among 2,140 adults (aged 18 and over), of whom, 1,443 own their primary residence and 617 rent their primary residence. The data have been weighted to reflect the composition of the U.S. adult population.

Results were weighted as needed on the basis of region, age within gender, education, household income, and race/ethnicity. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents' propensity to be online.

All sample surveys and polls, whether or not they use probability sampling, are subject to multiple sources of error which are most often not possible to quantify or estimate, including sampling error, coverage error, error associated with non-response, error associated with question wording and response options, and post-survey weighting and adjustments. Therefore, Harris Interactive avoids the words "margin of error" as they are misleading. All that can be calculated are different possible sampling errors with different probabilities for pure, non-weighted, random samples with 100 percent response rates. These are only theoretical because no published polls come close to this ideal.

Respondents for this survey were selected from among those who have agreed to participate in Harris Interactive surveys. Because the sample is based on those who agreed to be invited to participate in the Harris Interactive online research panel, no estimates of theoretical sampling error can be calculated.

About Harris Interactive
Harris Interactive is one of the world's leading custom market research firms, leveraging research, technology, and business acumen to transform relevant insight into actionable foresight. Known widely for the Harris Poll and for pioneering innovative research methodologies, Harris offers expertise in a wide range of industries including healthcare, technology, public affairs, energy, telecommunications, financial services, insurance, media, retail, restaurant, and consumer package goods. Serving clients in over 215 countries and territories through our North American, European, and Asian offices and a network of independent market research firms, Harris specializes in delivering research solutions that help us - and our clients - stay ahead of what's next. For more information, please visit http://www.harrisinteractive.com/.

About the National Apartment Association
One-third of the homes in America are apartment homes and many of these homes are represented by the National Apartment Association, America's leading advocate for quality rental housing that represents more than 6.1 million apartment homes throughout the United States and Canada. The organization's mission is to serve the interests of multifamily housing owners, managers, developers and suppliers and maintain a high level of professionalism in the multifamily housing industry. Visit http://www.leasingcafe.com/.

Background: The average rate of increase in consumer prices was a low 2.36% in the 1960s, rose to 7.09% in the 1970s, was 5.55% in the 1980s, fell to 3.50% in the 1990s (through 1995) and has remained around 3% over the last decade. Many experts claim the current inflation index used by the government is biased upward; hence actual inflation in the 1980s and 1990s has been even lower. MORE

It's a rumor I've heard from several friends in recent weeks: Yelp offers to remove negative reviews from advertisers. The rumors seem to stem from a questionable story in Oakland's Easy Bay Express from February of last year, in which the author reports on several local business owners-many of them anonymous-who say Yelp offered to remove negative reviews in return for advertising.

The story gained wider press in outlets like the New York Times, which examined the increasing pressure Yelp is facing from business owners who want to respond to negative reviews on their site.

I found similar sentiments among apartment managers after I wrote a story for the October issue of UNITS about managing your online reputation (login required). One manager wrote a heart-felt response lamenting her inability to directly respond to reviews on ApartmentRatings.com without paying a $100 start-up fee and $180 per year to register as a manager on the site (login required).

The story shows that it remains as important as ever to engage your residents both with great customer service onsite and by monitoring and participating in the conversation taking place online. If your residents enjoy living at your community, encouraging them to relate their experience online could boost your ratings. And if you find negative comments, they could help you identify and address legitimate issues at your community.

But what about comments that are false or vengeful? They hurt your community's reputation, and in some cases they can be difficult to rectify. I'd love to get apartment managers' thoughts on my initial question. Do you think the major review sites allow enough opportunity for apartment managers and owners to respond to reviews? What changes would you like to see?

There is no attempt to have Mom come in, experience the place, etc.. (although when I suggest it, they say, "Sure! We'd love to show her around". No "I will take care of you, and make sure your mother is happy" moment. Just, "Go visit the website for further information. Your quote will be good for 72 hours". Why would I rent an apartment online at this point? My mom hasn't even seen it. MORE

I found a few links from a google search but these don't quite have the functionality I'd like - I'm looking for a website that keeps a national database of salary ranges that will let apartment industry people search for salary ranges. 

http://bit.ly/bRtcfy

http://bit.ly/bGwyKi

http://bit.ly/aRoOqM


Does anyone have an idea they can share??  Please send them to info@leasingcafe.com and we'll post it on this blog! See http://www.leasingcafe.com/forum/ for continued discussion under "Salary Ranges for the Apartment Industry."

Thanks,

Becca

Dealing with Difficult People is included in our Unlimited Training Subscription of more than three dozen courses for the low cost of $0.20 per unit, per month.  Not an Unlimited Training Subscriber?  This title is also available at the Pay-Per-View rate of $79 per student.

Click here to begin previewing Dealing with Difficult People.

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http://www.gracehill.com/
mailto:contact@gracehill.com
Phone: (866) GRACEHILL

Web servers

* 13.9% - The growth of Apache websites in 2009.
* -22.1% - The growth of IIS websites in 2009.
* 35.0% - The growth of Google GFE websites in 2009.
* 384.4% - The growth of Nginx websites in 2009.
* -72.4% - The growth of Lighttpd websites in 2009.

Domain names

* 81.8 million - .COM domain names at the end of 2009.
* 12.3 million - .NET domain names at the end of 2009.
* 7.8 million - .ORG domain names at the end of 2009.
* 76.3 million - The number of country code top-level domains (e.g. .CN, .UK, .DE, etc.).
* 187 million - The number of domain names across all top-level domains (October 2009).
* 8% - The increase in domain names since the year before.

Internet users

* 1.73 billion - Internet users worldwide (September 2009).
* 18% - Increase in Internet users since the previous year.
* 738,257,230 - Internet users in Asia.
* 418,029,796 - Internet users in Europe.
* 252,908,000 - Internet users in North America.
* 179,031,479 - Internet users in Latin America / Caribbean.
* 67,371,700 - Internet users in Africa.
* 57,425,046 - Internet users in the Middle East.
* 20,970,490 - Internet users in Oceania / Australia.

Social media

* 126 million - The number of blogs on the Internet (as tracked by BlogPulse).
* 84% - Percent of social network sites with more women than men.
* 27.3 million - Number of tweets on Twitter per day (November, 2009)
* 57% - Percentage of Twitter's user base located in the United States.
* 4.25 million - People following @aplusk (Ashton Kutcher, Twitter's most followed user).
* 350 million - People on Facebook.
* 50% - Percentage of Facebook users that log in every day.
* 500,000 - The number of active Facebook applications.

Images

* 4 billion - Photos hosted by Flickr (October 2009).
* 2.5 billion - Photos uploaded each month to Facebook.
* 30 billion - At the current rate, the number of photos uploaded to Facebook per year.

Videos

* 1 billion - The total number of videos YouTube serves in one day.
* 12.2 billion - Videos viewed per month on YouTube in the US (November 2009).
* 924 million - Videos viewed per month on Hulu in the US (November 2009).
* 182 - The number of online videos the average Internet user watches in a month (USA).
* 82% - Percentage of Internet users that view videos online (USA).
* 39.4% - YouTube online video market share (USA).
* 81.9% - Percentage of embedded videos on blogs that are YouTube videos.

Web browsers

* 62.7% - Internet Explorer
* 24.6% - Firefox
* 4.6% - Chrome
* 4.5% - Safari
* 2.4% - Opera
* 1.2% - Other

Malicious software

* 148,000 - New zombie computers created per day (used in botnets for sending spam, etc.)
* 2.6 million - Amount of malicious code threats at the start of 2009 (viruses, trojans, etc.)
* 921,143 - The number of new malicious code signatures added by Symantec in Q4 2009.

About the Author: Website and web server stats from Netcraft. Domain name stats from Verisign and Webhosting.info. Internet user stats from Internet World Stats. Web browser stats from Net Applications. Email stats from Radicati Group. Spam stats from McAfee. Malware stats from Symantec (and here) and McAfee. Online video stats from Comscore, Sysomos and YouTube. Photo stats from Flickr and Facebook. Social media stats from BlogPulse, Pingdom (here and here), Twittercounter, Facebook and GigaOm.

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CHICAGO, Oct. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Renters seek a safe haven when searching for an apartment. According to a national Apartments.com survey--conducted during national crime prevention month--96 percent of respondents said neighborhood crime rate influences where they choose to live. More than 750 renter survey respondents stated violent crimes including assault and battery followed by theft and burglary concern them most. To protect themselves, renters are acting responsibly including keeping strangers out of the apartment community and are even willing to pay more in rent to live where they feel secure. MORE

Advanced Telephone Techniques Course is now available and registration for course launch contest.

COURSE DESCRIPTION: The telephone is perhaps the most widely utilized of all business tools.  Although using a telephone may seem like second nature, mastering the techniques presented in this course can help you stand apart from your competition by converting more prospect calls to visits and delivering superior service to your current residents.

Here is what is covered in this 2-hour title:

• Master successful telephone etiquette that will satisfy your prospective resident callers and get you closer to an in-person visit.
• Tour your caller through your community from the comfort of their own computer.
• Offer both reactive and proactive service in order to exceed resident expectations.
• Maintain a high level of customer service whether you're faced with emotional callers, language barriers, or multiple calls and visitors at once. 

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The article below my signature also applies to the apartment industry!!!  I know we are always looking at ways to differentiating ourselves from our competitors in the apartment industry and this could definitely be a HUGE selling point.  Especially when you realize that most if not all if our apartment dwellers use a cell phone as their PRIMARY phone line and their only source of communication for emergencies, etc while in their apartment homes.

Just something to chew on.

Becca Wilson.....read below...

Monday, March 23, 2009, 12:10pm EDT  |  Modified: Monday, March 23, 2009, 12:43pm

Cell phone reception a key to hotel choice

Orlando Business Journal

A new survey of U.S. travelers found that 54 percent who can't get strong cell phone reception at a hotel probably won't return.

The survey, commissioned by Repeated Signal Solutions, a provider of in-building cell and wireless antenna systems, polled 1,000 travelers aged 35 to 54 with incomes of $50,000 to $100,000.

The survey found the same sentiment applied to office building, 48 percent; meeting spaces, 45 percent; and hospitals and medical centers, 36 percent.

 About Michel Tate

http://www.blogger.com/profile/15744539186089723956

Michele began her career in the real estate industry over 20 years ago as a means to finance her undergraduate degree. Since, Michele has proudly served prominent real estate firms within the multi-family, single family and commercial sectors such as Trammell Crow, General Investment & Development and Dewey Homes in various capacities such as sales management, sales coaching, marketing analyst, performance analyst, asset marketing and corporate educational development. Throughout her career, Michele has established a solid reputation for quality, creativity, leadership and achievement. Most of her successes are directly attributed to her natural propensity to communicate intuitively, build trust, motivate teams and demand excellence. In 2006, Michele founded Sales Velocity, a sales coaching firm devoted to helping real estate developers realize their bottom-line results through qualitative sales measurement, planning, coaching and management. Michele's formula for success emphasizes innovative methods revolving around performance assessment, self-discovery, team building, goal setting, ongoing measurement tools and, most importantly, individual sales coaching.

PadZing provides apartment rental rates and vacancy trends quickly with dynamic mapping. Validate your rent pricing, create comp survey reports, get a better handle on your market now.

The video demo on the home page presents simple instructions on how to access relevant market data.

The Tulsa Apartment Association will accept a job announcement via email at http://www.taaonline.org/contact-us.asp and they will make the listing available for inquiries.

The Apartment Association of Greater Omaha and Lincoln also provides a free job posting at http://www.aagol.org/pages/career.asp. 

I also found a great resource for free job posting at colleges and universities; however, while these are helpful for entry level positions, they are not usually relevant to positions requiring experience.

If anyone has information available on other sources where property management employers can post a free job listing, please send me a note at kfreeberg@spherexx.com and we will share the good news.

Regards,

Kathy

Of course, this topic is like herding cats - because the results of anyone aggregator or consolidator of information is going to differ and each lead source hates to have their information out in the public and gathering all the sources to report data is the "herding cats" part of the equation.  The lead sources would want validation for the validation to assure an accurate view was taken of their success and the companies reporting the data would argue about the accuracy of collection and reporting.  So I'm going to provide some information that was showcased at NAA in June 2007 that was a compilation of industry benchmarks and I transcribed the session which you can read at the link below. 

http://spherexx.com/benchmarks

This is really great information and regardless of whether or not you agree with the data reported (as it is always skewed by the companies reporting information) it is still a great resource document.

I did ask permission from the speakers that compiled and presented the information (Tracey Hopkins - http://www.jumpstartonline.net/ & Lisa Trosien - http://www.apartmentexpert.com/ )

I mention this topic, because answering the phone is still a mission critical communication tool used by prospects, residents, vendors, your maintenance team and your supervisor.  Everyone seems to be short on staff to cover the phones and leasing tasks each day - so what's the golden solution.

I recommend trying some of these ideas and you will have to find what will work and you might have to try a combination of these options:

1] Select a window of time in the morning and the afternoon when you can concentrate on calling back non-emergency phone calls from residents, vendors or prospects.  Keep an egg timer on your desk and that tickin in the background will remind you to focus the call towards resolution as quickly as possible.  Recap the problem or issue and then tell the person that you have on the line what is going to be done then make sure you have all their contact information and close the call. 

It is an art and a science to direct a call towards successful communication- that's why we pay money to call centers that specifically train their personnel to control and channel the caller to a successful close.

2] Talk with your company (or corporate office) about setting up a special phone number for maintenance calls and have one dedicated person that covers that phone for all the properties.  That would give fantastic economies of scale and allow your onsite team to focus on leasing and customer service and allow one person to specialize in fielding all service related needs including follow-up after the maintenance team completes the tickets.

3] Try to get away from using an answering service during business hours - these calls are really important and even if you can only take a message for a call back later...it will come across more personalized than having a generic answering service take the same message. 

Note:  Absolutely require your answering service to send transcripts of all calls via email.

4] Look at getting pricing from a professional call center after hours - so they will do more than just an answering service - they will coax information out of the caller and help sell them on the community - versus just writing down the name and phone number of the caller which might be all you are paying for from an answering service.  This service can easily pay for itself after hours!

5] Direct all vendors to email you or fax you their request instead of taking valuable time out of your day to listen to their sales pitch or recap the work they just performed.  Besides having this in writing is much better for you anyway. 

You might also talk to your corporate office about setting up a special phone number for vendors to use and ask them politely to stop using the main property phone number, which is reserved for prospects and residents.  This "vendor hotline" could be directed to an answering service and they can email you the content of the calls. Think what a savings on time that would be and would allow you to have a written trail of vendor communication.

If you have successful strategies that have worked for you - then please share them with me and I'll post on this blog.  Email me at:  bwilson@spherexx.com

All the best.....

Becca

I recommend phone training with Gracehill.com so your leasing staff are "closing" phone traffic or at the bare minimum closing the call with an appointment set.  If you are understaffed then I would recommend hiring a 3rd party industry specific call center (which is just a fancy term for answering service). 

Can you afford to loose a prospect (aka "lead) because you don't have infrastructure in place to effectively collect and communicate with that prospect?  At the National Apartment Association conference in June 2007, they had a benchmarking session that said the average property management company is paying over $200 to get ONE prospect to their front door or do their website.  So you can see how expensive it is to let an email or a phone call slip past you!  YIKES!

I would recommend the following resources to help you build your infrastructure for leasing success:

http://www.rentandretain.com/
http://www.gracehill.com/ (setup a free account and check out their resources)

If you don't have a website for your apartment community you need to get one and don't hire your cousin 3rd removed on your Mother's side that works out of his garage.  Hire a professional web developer.  Here are a few examples of some very effective websites you can get ideas from:  http://austonwoods.com/ or http://waterstonecorona.com/ or http://missionatlavillita.com/.

I'm signing off for now, but should something else pop into my head I'll add to this post. 

All The Best!

Becca