Apartment Leasing Incentives: What Works and What Doesn't?
If you’ve spent any time advertising a building, you know the power of leasing incentives. Often times, the right incentive can help push an indecisive lesse over the fence and into your community. But, as you can readily assume, not all leasing incentives are created equal. Some may help you where it matters most, others may just cost you money.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at the leasing incentives that are likely to move the needle and the ones you should probably avoid, but before that, here are some useful stats.
- 73% of renters rank affordability as their most important factor for choosing an apartment
- 33% of folks say leasing incentives are nice but not a focus
- 28% say leasing incentives are a key factor in the decision to rent
- 14% say they’re critically important in their decision, especially among millenials.
It’s evident from these stats that the most important and effective leasing incentives are centered on affordability, both in rent and in initial move-in costs. While they aren’t likely attract folks in droves, they may be the crucial bit of business that helps to tip their decision in your favor and round out those final leases in your building. Here are most common and most effective leasing incentives centered on affordability and reduced move-in fees.
Leasing Incentives That Work
Rent decreases
Discounting early rent is a great way to attract new renters, and decreasing rent is a great way to retain footloose renters. If you’re looking for a particular way to entice passerbys, or passive prospects, offering a percentage off, or a rent-free period, as part of your leasing effort is a great way of getting attention.
Free parking
Especially if your community is centrally located, where parking is at a premium, offering free parking makes for an irresistible incentive. Plus, in the grand scheme of your apartment community, offering free-parking isn’t really offering up that much.
Waived or reduced application and/or deposit fees
Waiving or reducing deposit fees is attractive to renters, but eliminates the leverage landlords need to protect their property. Spreading a deposit out over the first several months of renting can also soften the initial blow of move-in costs, but if you have any application fees or deposits that can be waived, it will definitely help sweeten the deal for potential tenants.
Early payment discounts
Renters who pay on time—usually the last day possible—really don’t deserve any special discounts. However, those who pay more than a week early totally do. If you advertise that discount upfront, it can make an excellent leasing incentive.
Leasing Incentives That Don’t Work
Gift Cards
Unless you’re going to offer at least $1,000, don’t even bother. Renters are looking for a place to live and their main criteria is typically affordability, not gifts. Do yourself a favor and take whatever your money you were planning to spend on gift cards, and invest it back into your property, which brings us to our next leasing incentive.
Property Improvements
If you’re offering property improvements as an incentive, you’re definitely putting the horse before the cart. Make sure your community is pristine, or in it’s best possible condition, before renting, let alone offering incentives, or else you’ll just be fighting an uphill battle.
Gifts like TVs, gift baskets, etc
Only 11% of renters rated free gifts as an incentive to renew a lease. Not likely it will do much to get them to sign a new lease either. Put that cash to better use and offer deposit, rent, or parking discounts or waivers.
There are maybe one thousand and ways to conduct a successful apartment marketing campaign. But, when it comes to leasing incentives, there are time honored tactics of attracting attention and there are a lot of common ways that leasing managers or marketers wasted a lot of money. These days, as millennials dominate the renters market, leasing incentives that focus on the immediate costs of living are increasingly effective.
