21 George Blog Post: Leasing Competitive Edge

While doing some office spring cleaning, we came across an old leasing flyer marketing the first property we acquired in 2011.  As you can tell by the flyer, it was a small single-family house with a cottage(!) in a small tertiary market in Vermont. We hung the flyer around town looking for renters.  Not quite a repeatable marketing system full of processes and tracking, but it worked!

This is the only single-family property we ever acquired.  We pivoted to multifamily in 2013, and since that time, have acquired over 650 multifamily units.

While this old flyer may just be a reason to reminisce on how far we have come, it does offer some valuable insight on successful real estate investing…

A little extra effort/attentiveness can go a long way… Whether it is a single-family house in a small Vermont town, or a 200-unit property in a major metro, leasing can be a challenge.  This is especially relevant in today’s rental market while we absorb the abundance of units developed in recent years.  Just marketing a property through the same online websites as everyone else might not be enough.  Setting up referral programs, getting out in the community and handing out flyers to local business, and developing “Preferred Employer” discounts to major employers in the immediate submarket can set your property apart when leasing.

Really know your market… This doesn’t mean just being able to name a few recent economic development announcements, it means knowing your market intimately from a rental perspective.  What are other similar properties in the immediate submarket charging for rent?  What condition are they in?  What type of amenities do they have?  And what are they doing to attract new residents?  Who is your tenant base and what more can you do to attract them?

Have a local presence…. At the end of the day, it is your local team that determines whether your asset plan will be successful or not.  If you are not local to the property, you better really trust someone that is.  If your lease-up isn’t going well, who is going to tour competitors to see how they are being successful?  Who is going to hand out flyers to local businesses? Who is going to put in that extra effort so the property is successful?  This is a major factor when managing renovations and contractors as well.  It is easy to say, “my third-party manager or my onsite staff will do that”, but it is much harder to find the right people with willingness and enthusiasm execute these tasks.

While it is fun to reflect on how far we have come, it is also important to reflect on the failures, successes, strategies, and people, that allow us to continue to grow.