Renewing residents plays a big part in property management. In this post, we’ll share a few tips and ideas on how to increase your renewal rates.
If you’re in Property Management, a big part of your job is ensuring lease renewal. Renewal rates can reflect a property’s general health and significantly impact its NOI. The catch is that you can’t start thinking about a resident’s renewal 90 days before the contract is up. Resident renewal starts the day your prospect signs their lease.
Here are ways to ensure lease renewal months before the lease end date:
1. Change your move-in from a process to an experience
First impressions matter. Especially when it comes to a new home. And it’s the first step to increase renewal rates. A common mistake site teams make is treating move-ins as a simple checklist or process when the focus should be on creating an experience that ensures the resident they’ve made the right choice. There are plenty of ways you can transform your move-ins; we wrote about it here.
2. Conduct monthly resident pulse surveys to catch every issue
Monthly surveys may sound like a lot. But we’ve noticed that customers that follow our recommendation of monthly renewal-intent surveys have an advantage at catching problems before it’s too late. For example, you might have a resident who always answers that they’re likely to renew (even though their lease is not up for another five months). Then something happens, and four months out, they answer they’re unlikely to renew. That’s a red flag and a fair warning. It’s an excellent opportunity for you and your team because you are aware that something has changed, and you can reach out directly to understand the situation. With plenty of time to make it right.
3. Go beyond doing resident events and focus on creating experiences and actual engagement
Resident engagement is not just a fancy buzzword. It means building a community your residents enjoy being a part of. An engaged community will tell you what they need to thrive, making renewals easier. Resident engagement is the whole enchilada; events are a vital ingredient, but not the only thing. If you want to win at resident engagement, you have to make sure you’re covering all your bases: communication, interactions, surveys, events, move-ins, maintenance.
4. Over-communicate with your residents
Elevator down? Send an email. Have a backlog of maintenance requests? Send an email. Fire alarm? Send an email and notice. Someone out sick, and you’re short-staffed? Send an email. The most common complaint we see on resident surveys is a lack of communication from management. If you think you are overdoing resident communication, you are just about doing it.
Here are ways to ensure lease renewal when a renewal is less than 90 days away:
❓ Ask the resident what would get them to renew. You should know where each of your residents stands before sending a renewal letter. Is this person okay with a 5% to 10% increase? Are they happy with their current unit or maybe want a different view?
❤️ Offer a loyalty program similar to airlines or hotels that gives residents a reason to renew year after year
📙 Send the resident a recap of their time at the community, similar to Spotify’s end-of-year listening recap. E.g. events they attended, amenities they used, neighbors they are connected to etc.