Most prospects who submit an application to live at your community are everyday people looking for a home. You certainly don’t want to make their screening process a brutal one.
But not all applicants have pure intentions. While you want to create a seamless, low-hassle experience, you also have to protect your property from potential fraud. While standard background-check items such as credit and income are easy enough to check, data pertaining to rental history, criminal record and ID verification can be more difficult and time-consuming to collect.
Tech tools can unquestionably help in this process, particularly software that examines all of these parameters and can produce thorough and accurate results in a matter of minutes. But there are potential warning signs for fraud that onsite teams should be aware of, particularly when considering the cost of identity theft and fraud climbed to $16 billion in 2017.
Entrata’s Message Center lets properties communicate easily and efficiently with residents and prospects through branded and scheduled messaging. And now, with Message Center’s new template libraries with user permissions, we’re offering even better control to help promote brand consistency and empower site-level teams to communicate more effectively.
Communication is vital, and Message Center is a powerful tool. What can you do with Message Center templates? continue
Sometimes the leasing process is smooth and uninterrupted. And every now and then, the drive through rush-hour traffic is surprisingly smooth, a political conversation is cordial and well mannered and a root canal goes pleasantly well.
But most of the time, the leasing process takes a few unexpected turns and seldom follows a blueprint. You’re dealing with people, after all, each with their own leasing ambitions, timelines and varying bits of spontaneity.
Thankfully, technology provides ways to simplify the leasing process and avoid many of the common pitfalls that befall leasing associates. Automated communications can make life much easier. continue
In the days of instant gratification, a missed call from an apartment prospect can be exceedingly detrimental. In fact, that call might have been your only chance, because today’s prospects often immediately move on to the next community.
If a prospect is calling, you’ve already conquered a key hurdle by generating interest in your community. The initial call is often the first touch point with your property and your brand, and Entrata leasing centers alone handled 2.1 million calls in the last 12 months. This is no time to alienate these prospects – it’s time to bring them home, literally, as a resident of your community. continue
Leasing office life would be a lot simpler if all leads were created equal. But they’re not. And unfortunately, you can’t always tell just by looking whether or not a lead is likely to progress to a lease. Luckily, you don’t have to just trust your gut when you’re trying to figure out if that prospect who’s excitedly calling about an available apartment today will sign a lease tomorrow or ghost you in a week. Entrata’s LeadManager is pleased to present Lead Scoring. continue
Congratulations! You’ve got prospects. Your hard work and marketing strategies have generated interest in your community, and you’re getting phone calls and emails and prospective renters wanting to know more. Mission accomplished?
Not quite. It’s a sensitive, make-or-break time in the relationship between a community and a prospective renter. How your team acts at this juncture not only influences which leads convert, it sets the bar for your relationship with your renters for the entire duration of their lease. continue
The days of love-at-first-sight apartment conversions are dwindling, particularly in the digital space.
With various options in a hyper-competitive market, prospective renters have become more selective than ever when deciding on a home. In fact, the average renter peruses at least five lead sources when searching for their next home.
Those lead-source sites can vary from a community website, Internet Listing Service, social media, review sites and several others. Essentially, the renter is genuinely on a journey when selecting a home.
Marketing teams that can track that unique journey glean a competitive advantage by utilizing the data to attract more prospects. The problem is, many teams credit a conversion to the first or last site visited by the prospect. When a prospect peruses several lead sources, the first or last touch point is only part of the story. continue
A growing number of your prospects prefer texting to phone calls, and with the Entrata’s new two-way texting functionality, you’ve got them covered.
Entrata now allows your properties to enable SMS messaging through your ProspectPortal website by showing prospective residents a “Text Us” option when they click the multi contact button. A prospect who prefers to communicate via text can use the prompt to initiate a message to the property. Then, any agent who has marked themselves as available is able to see and respond to incoming texts right in the Entrata dashboard. continue
Creating ancillary income can be a slippery slope. You can produce extra revenue by assessing fees to your residents, but you have to walk a fine line to avoid alienating them with fees they might interpret as frivolous.
Residents understand that they’ll probably have to pay pet rent, a fee for extra storage or a little extra for a covered parking spot. But, they don’t want to feel nickel and dimed with extraneous fees they believe should be part of the rent. continue
Apartment operators are constantly devising and revising ways to ensure the personal data of their residents is secure. But what about when the residents themselves commit fraud to live at your community?
A growing number of prospective renters are utilizing fake or stolen social security numbers and fake pay stubs to meet an apartment community’s qualifying standards. And if they’re able to succeed and become residents, predictable problems – and worse – can arise.
