Points to Ponder from my November Work
Recently, I’ve been doing a lot of content writing work for websites. My process for this always includes looking at the websites of the comps to the property I’m working with because there is no way you can sell what you have until you know what you’re selling against. In doing this, I’ve been keeping a list of thoughts that occur to me as I’m looking at these property sites. While I’m not going to tell you WHICH sites I’ve been looking at (client privacy and whatnot), I wanted to share a few of my thoughts on trends I’m seeing and questions I have about them, so we can ALL make our sites just a little better. Take them or leave them - they’re just a few ideas to think about.
Many of the sites I was exploring for this client had living green walls as a feature of their clubhouse or amenities spaces. From a consumer standpoint, these are super cool and neato, but I was curious about the maintenance of this feature, so I reached out to a local regional property manager in the Seattle area and asked her opinion on them. “They are stupid expensive and a pain in the ass to maintain for the teams and if your developer wants to put one in, try to work around it if you can, for your own damn sanity,” was her very candid response, and it came in the tone of voice that you might use if your cat keeps pooping outside the litterbox just to be a jerk to you. While these are cool-looking features, and I’m sure they help to sell the property, we need to find a different feature that checks those boxes without making our onsite teams loathe dealing with it.
PHENOMENAL COMMUNITY AMENITIES…itty-bitty living space. In the property sites and comps I was working on, mostly around new developments, 374 square feet walk-in-closet-sized apartments were not the outlier, but seemed like the new norm. Again, I know why - space is valuable and developers want to make the most of it. But the problem is that we are still in a pandemic, where people are still working from home, and we have no idea when this virus will stop mutating in more and more lethal ways, so the chances of a really dangerous variant coming along in the next 2-4 years are not small. People were already in their homes for 18 months, and one of the biggest drivers of people moving is that they realized how tiny and tight their living spaces were during that time. We used to sell these small spaces by using the logic of, “How much time do you really spend at home, between work and social activities?” That is not a useful tactic anymore. I don’t see the work-from-home changes going away anytime soon, so I cannot imagine that these itty-bitty places are as attractive to people as they once might have been. If vaccination numbers rise, then maybe everyone will eventually return to the office, but I just don’t see it happening that way, especially in the tech sector. I think remote work for many folks is here to stay, and that square footage makes having a dedicated workspace very difficult. Our builders need to give this some thought because maximizing space is one thing, but cramming as many units as you can into an apartment building might not be the best way to go anymore considering the last few years.
Log in for what? Some of the sites I saw had a space where if you wanted to apply or even get close to an application, you had to create an account and then log in with it. No. Just… No. Don’t do this. Do not put a barrier between your future resident and that application. Forcing them to make an account is a massive barrier for the simple reason that it’s a huge PITA and most people aren’t going to want to do it.
Internal Jargon doesn’t sell to External Customers. I mean no disrespect by this because within the industry, these things can be very useful, but when I see something on your site like an ORA score, but there’s no optional pop-up explanation of what that means, what I see is wasted marketing real estate. Your average renter doesn't know what something like an ORA score is, so it literally means nothing to them. Either educate them as to what it means and says about your property or omit it. This goes for any community awards you’ve won, etc. Make it matter, or leave it off.
Need a cheaper by still impressive amenity? One of the coolest amenities I saw on a property is one I’d never come across in the communities out here in Seattle and it would probably sell and/or get a lot of use by residents out here - a Solarium. This isn’t a ton of space required, and in the PNW at least, it could be a real physical and mental health benefit for residents during the winter. If the sun isn’t shining outside where you live, you might consider the power of bringing it inside instead.
Like I said, just a few thoughts from my recent work with clients on forming content for their websites. What are you seeing out there?
