(#340) PART 2: MONITOR YOUR TRAFFIC LIKE A HAWK
STUDENT HOUSING TIPS PART 2
Did you read part 1 already? If not, go back and catch up!
We’ve made it to part 2!
#2 Monitor your traffic like a hawk and look at your leasing activity under a microscope
It is vital to monitor the traffic that’s coming in during June like a hawk and look at the leasing activity under a microscope. This level of monitoring will be a GAME CHANGER for you during the last little bit of your lease up.
Where I see many teams go wrong is they pay attention to that total weekly goal number without giving much regard to the number of beds left within each floor plan to assure you have enough traffic coming in to spread across the variety of floor plans you have left.
I want to break this down for you, so I’ve prepared a super simple example for you.
In this example, I’m going to show you how to build in more precise monitoring and customized efforts to avoid having 150 beds left to lease in June turned 50 shades of really wrong; real quick!
In this super simple example, let’s say you have 150 beds left.
Here’s the breakdown in detail:
Four bedrooms: 85 beds
Three bedrooms: 30 beds
Partial beds across all floor plans: 35 beds
So in this example 150 beds divided by seven weeks (that’s a two-week buffer) = 21 a week!
As mentioned, a big miss is that for the few weeks in June, the majority of the onsite and corporate support teams are looking just at that 21 a week goal only in one way.
For example, typical conversations in meetings sound a lot like, “How many did we get for the week?” “Did they hit their 21?” “We were pretty close to 21 this week, or we exceeded the goal of 21 this week.”
You see the team becomes overly fixated on the 21 for the week, which is a good starting point, but with an advanced strategy you would bring in a much more detailed level of monitoring to the 21 for the current and the remaining weeks.
Let’s get back to the example.
So you’re cruising through June, and it appears you’re killin’ it. You and the team have successfully closed 21 leases on the nose for the first three weeks.
Yup, that’s right three back to back weeks of 21 leaving the property with 87 beds left to lease + four weeks to go (there’s a two-week buffer built into this example).
Everyone is STOKED, and the leasing pressure has lifted a pinch. You’re not in the clear, but it’s looking pretty good.
So you think.
Time flies so fast during the summer, especially in student housing, and just like that you’re all of a sudden in the last week of June, and you get blindsided by one of those “random slow summer week’s” and close out the week with a total of 10 leases when you needed 21.
Remember you have a buffer built into your goals, and it’s only your “first” slow summer week, so it’s okay for now...
Majority of the team chalks it up to a “slow week.”
The team meetings start to sound a little like this, “It’s the first week in a while it’s been slow.” “We should pick back up into the 20s because after all the team was able to hit their goal for three weeks in a row and only short by this one week.” “Last year we had a decent July.”
Maybe they look ahead perhaps they don’t, but they’re now butting up to the Fourth of July which is a predicted slow summer week. What does this mean, well they are about to tap into their “second” slow summer week. <<<Now it’s likely becoming pretty clear to you as to why I originally suggested you built in two possibly even three buffer weeks when you were reevaluating your goals at the very beginning.>>>
In addition to the two back to back slow summer weeks, the team has been so overly fixated on the 21 a week goal number they haven’t been paying close enough attention to the details.
It’s now July, and they are just now noticing that the majority of the June velocity in both the traffic and the actual number of closed leases had been going solely into the four bedrooms only.
The property is getting ready to run out of 4 bedrooms, and there has been NO movement in the remaining 65 beds across three bedrooms and partials.
So for this example, you’ve completed June and here’s what’s left:
Four bedrooms: 12 beds
Three bedrooms: 30 beds
Partial beds across all floor plans: 35
By the time you catch this error, it’s July and the intensity level increases, a little bit of panic has set in because the four bedrooms are SOLD OUT, and all of the traffic that’s coming in isn’t available for the higher costs bed types that are left or perhaps they are coming in as groups.
The weekly goals continue to fall short because you don’t have a variety of traffic and it can spiral pretty fast.
THE FIRE SALE usually begins shortly after.
You’re running out of time, and the pressure is on!
It is essential to monitor the traffic that’s coming in during June like a hawk and look at the leasing activity under a microscope to avoid THE FIRE SALE.
If you catch that the velocity is favoring a specific floor plan type early enough in June, there’s a decent amount of time to adjust your efforts.
Last but not least, click here to read Part 3: Customizing Your Marketing Efforts by Bed Type.
