This blog post is inspired from a LinkedIn post by Nichole Oswald from RPM Living. Nichole shares her recent trip to Disneyland as a mom and she compares it from her last trip to Disneyland as a child herself. However, this time it was different.
Nichole wondered about the reasons behind closed rides, could it be maintenance, low staffing levels, profit, or wait times? She gained a new appreciation for the intricate logistics and staffing required to create a magical experience for the visitors at Disney. Her kids did not think about these details, but Nichole did, and it made her think about how to provide a better experience for her own employees, clients, and customers.
Nichole's experience at Disneyland provides a great analogy for property managers looking to improve tenant experience. Just as Disney is able to create a magical experience for visitors by paying attention to every detail, property managers can create a positive experience for potential tenants.
Tenants today expect a seamless and personalized experience when searching for rental properties online. They want to be able to easily find and filter listings based on their preferences, view high-quality photos and videos, and receive prompt responses to their inquiries. In other words, they want the process of finding and renting a property to be as smooth and enjoyable as possible.
By providing a positive tenant experience, property managers can attract and retain tenants, increase occupancy rates, and ultimately, improve their bottom line. That's why we created this report with all the insights gathered from our internal resources to help you optimize tenant experience.
About the data
This data is generated from our internal database from September 2022 - March 2023. All time based metrics are in Pacific Time Zone.
When are potential tenants more active?
Wednesdays and Thursdays accounted for the most traffic through listings sites. Which means 49% of the showings were booked mid-week.
What days and times do tenants prefer to visit rentals?
43% of the showings were scheduled for weekends. The percentage for weekend showings is lesser than weekdays since only a small percentage of our clients allow weekend showing times. This number may vary for your company and team strength.
While mid-week accounted for the highest traffic, we saw 50% of the total showings getting booked between 4 - 7am PT.
Do potential tenants prefer Emails or SMS?
While comparing emails with SMS, we saw 60% of the showings were booked through follow-up SMS rather than follow-up emails. At LetHub, we ensure prospect nurturing at all steps of the leasing funnel. We send out auto-replies and no-response follow-up SMS and Emails to all the interested leads.
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What medium works for booked showings?
As per our data, 41% of showings are booked from auto-email replies. With LetHub, you can hyper-customize your emails using lead specific tags, add images, and go for unlimited text. 30% of the showings are booked directly into River's calendar right away. This means a huge chunk of your page traffic wants a glitch-free and accessible calendar.
Surprisingly, 26% of the potential leads choose to book showings over text! Another worthwhile number to notice is that follow-up email campaigns account for an extra 5% of the showings booked (bonus). Although it seems like a small number, but during slow leasing seasons every showing counts!
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Vacancy Length
With LetHub, the median vacancy length is 7 days. That's a 30% reduction for our customers.
Most of our customers average days on market before switching to LetHub was around 15-20 days. 50% of the vacant units converted within the first 20 days.