3 Tips For Improving Leasing Agent Closing Ratios At Your Apartment Communities

16:34 01 December 2022

Achieving strong occupancy rates across every apartment property in your multifamily portfolio relies on many factors, notably marketing, pricing, geographic location, target audience, and amenities available at each of your properties.

You also need leasing agents on-site who perform unit showings and interact with prospective residents at optimal levels. They often are a forgotten piece in the leasing performance equation. Still, their role is paramount, and they must have the tools and training necessary to do what you need them to be able to do consistently and effectively.

There are three things property managers and owners can do to support their leasing agents and improve their abilities to close more leases.

1. Set up phone call (and email) tracking software.

A critical part of leasing agent closing success is how they handle phone conversations and other interactions with prospective residents. You gain verifiable data on this crucial step in the leasing process by implementing phone and email tracking software.

You can track if and how often they answer the phone during business hours.

You can measure the duration of each phone call, which is an eye-opening metric to follow. Typically, longer talks indicate leasing agents are asking the right questions and helping prospective residents move along in their leasing journey. The team at RentVision wrote an excellent resource about how leasing agents should handle phone conversations.

Plus, you can listen to conversation recordings and discover areas where training could help your leasing agents grow in their roles.

2. Implement video touring options on a dedicated community website.

There's a stigma within the multifamily industry that new-age marketing tools like video tours, 3D renderings, and other virtual touring tools will eventually replace leasing agents.

That couldn't be further from the truth. For leasing agents to close consistently, you must have video tour options on dedicated community websites.

The reason is twofold.

One, prospective residents want to see the inside of apartment communities before stepping on location. When you have videos available on community websites, it guarantees most have already 'visited' your apartments which means they're more interested than other leads.

Two, video tours are incredibly considerate of leasing agents. Anyone in that role knows the frustrations of dealing with no-shows or bad showings, where it's evident immediately that prospective residents don't like what they're seeing. But with having video tours online, the onus is on future residents to establish their interest and qualify themselves as strong candidates to sign a lease.

Utilizing video tours will result in leasing agents dealing with fewer prospects who are less qualified and spending more time with genuinely interested individuals instead.

3. Stagger the timing of future lease expirations.

Avoiding multiple units that vacate simultaneously, which happens when leases expire on the last day of the month, is critical to improving leasing agent performance. Here are some ideas for staggering the timing of when leases expire.

The reason is simply mathematical. For agents to close leases efficiently, they need to be able to perform showings. To perform showings, they need units to be turned over from the previous resident(s) efficiently.

When units vacate simultaneously, it burdens your maintenance staff because they can only work on one unit turnover at a time. That means some units will be unshowable and unrentable until the first one in line is ready.

When your leasing agents deal with a more manageable number of vacancies, it's easier to lease units quicker because they can schedule more showings.

Conclusion

Giving your leasing agents the support and tools they need to shine in their roles are critical to achieving strong occupancy rates portfolio-wide.

Implementing call tracking software, utilizing video tours on a community website, and staggering when leases expire would help leasing agents improve their closing ratios.