Category: announcements

The Fall season is upon us!  ‘Tis the season when traffic tends to slow down. 

Over the next few weeks it will be important to ramp up marketing efforts to prepare for winter, kind of like how a bear prepares to hibernate.

Understand: the goal isn’t zero availability. This is just a push to get availability to a comfortable level.  Let’s enjoy the upcoming winter with strong and stable occupancy.

Here are some suggestions on how to push through these last few weeks relatively normal rental traffic. 

• Attract and Secure Applications By…..
  • Optimizing Craigslist ads
    • Ensure ad ‘headings’ are unique, eye catching, and detailed
    • Ensure photos are excellent quality and sell the unit you’re trying to advertise; be intentional in the ‘lead photo’ you select
    • Have a strong ‘intro’ paragraph:  Detailing succinct property information into a small paragraph.  Often “location” details fall here.
    • Ensure the body of the ad is detailed but not overwhelming
    • Make sure the “map” function is activated.  Many prospects often use this learn about your neighborhood
    • Advertising info must be accurate and well-written; please, careful grammar and spelling
    • Review your posted ad.  Is it what you intended?
    • Share your ads with your regional manager (and others!) and accept constructive feedback
  • Be fluid by posting multiple Craigslist ads throughout each day

• Distribute referral flyers (available on the eExchange) to residents, common areas, attached to packages/occupied maintenance requests, local surrounding businesses
• Get active in a referral network with other property managers
• Study surrounding market comparables regularly for pricing, amenity differences, promotions, etc.
• Double check ‘rent ready’ units.  Are your vacancies ‘dialed-in’ in terms of quality and cleanliness
  • Ensure paths of travel from the office to show-ready units are sharp!
• Be available!
  • If need be, forwarded your office phones to a sister property on days off so every lead can be captured and appointments set without delay

• Study your availability by floor plan
  • Understand the variance between the old rent and new rent goal.  Is the new rent goal reasonable?  Is it too aggressive?
  • Understand the ‘premium’ value differences between available floor plans (corner unit vs middle unit, upstairs vs downstairs, view vs no view, upgraded unit vs classic unit)
  • Acknowledge long standing vacant units and understand what barriers exist in securing an application
  • Do you have multiple, similar available units?  Would one in particular work as a good ‘loss-leader’?
• Close, close, close. Always ask for if your prospect would like to fill out an application on every tour.
  • Follow up with prospects until you receive a “hard” no. Diligent, friendly follow up after a tour can demonstrate a commit to their prospect.  And, it may swing a decision or two your way.

If anyone has any additional ideas or strategies that they would like to share please forward along!

You have our full support! Happy renting!

EFORMS UPDATE!

 C059 Request for Termination

 For Use Effective October 10, 2019 

______  This is a NEW form

__ X___  This is a MODIFICATION To an Existing Form

The purpose of the addition of this form and / or form modifications is:

• To add a box for you to check indicating if a household is currently on a Cambridge Rental Agreement or a MFNW Rental Agreement; this will help SERC staff understand which termination letter to use for the request

The form below will be effective until further notice.

As always, we welcome your suggestions and your feedback on this and any other form we currently use. Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact me or your Property Supervisor.

As a reminder, effective for the 10/10/19 pay date employees will no longer receive paper pay statements in the mail.  Electronic pay statements are available to view, download, and print at any time.  Please see the below handout with instructions for accessing electronic pay statements.  Employees who do not have direct deposit will continue to receive their checks in the mail.

Here are a few friendly reminders regarding Tenant Tech / MFNW forms:

All Forms

On any / all forms in Tenant Tech, be sure to click thegray Insert Default or Insert Default Notes button(s) on any form that you see that button available. This will auto-fill in the information for you and save time.

Utilities

All Rental Agreements should now reflect the following settings; the Resident button(s) should never be “un-checked” under any circumstances, even if a Resident is not currently paying for a utility. The Utilities screen in Tenant Tech for the Rental Agreement should always look like this:

Late Fees

You should always click the green Update to Default button and then the gray Calculate 10% for Late Fees when completing the Fees section of the Agreement to Execute and the Rental Agreement:

When drafting a Rental Agreement for a household with a Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher, you will need to enter the TOTAL monthly rent (only) in the Monthly Charges section in Tenant Tech. To provide an example, let’s say total monthly rent for an apartment is $1,000. You will complete as follows:

Then, in Special Provisions / Disclosures of the Rental Agreement, you will reflect the following message: Resident’s rent portion is $____ (list amount) and Housing Authority’s rent portion is $_____ (list amount). See example below:

It is rapidly becoming the time of the year that we and our children are most affected by illnesses such as colds, flu and other miscellaneous viruses, that may require us to take time off of work. 

Many of your properties either have more than one person working in the office or are part of a cluster in which you have others employees who can fill in if you must be off work.  However, other properties are more remote or smaller so you do not have backup help.  For those that fall into the latter category, we are asking you to be proactive by working with at least one other property to develop a “buddy system” in which you can cover each other properties when necessary.  Please provide your buddy system plan to your Portfolio Supervisor by Wednesday, October 9, 2019.

Please use  M004 Move-In Accounting form to calculate what is owed and present the completed form at move-in to a household. This form is also used to enter in the dollar amount for move-in specials / concessions (as a negative amount). A sample completed form is attached, and has also been added to Uploaded Documents in Tenant Tech for future reference.

When you have a move in with a concession (which your Property Supervisor has pre-approved), you will also enter language about the concession in Special Provisions / Disclosures on the Rental Agreement in Tenant Tech; see sample below:

When sending M065 (or M065p for properties located within Portland City limits), you will include the month-to-month fees in the rent amount(s) offered, rather than separating out the MTM charges from the rent – see attached example.

Additionally, please add the following language to Additional Information section in Tenant Tech for M065 / M065p for this month’s renewal notices. Next month, you will be able to click the gray Insert Default Information button in this section and this language will auto-fill:

Please share this information with all onsite staff.  Industrial Chem Labs and Services Inc. and/or Industrial Service Corp is NOT a vendor of Cambridge!

This unscrupulous company has been making calls to our site managers once again.  Their scam consists of calling and insisting on talking to a maintenance representative or manager and they insist their company is on our approved vendor list.  They will even at times reference Scott Busch’s name, or your supervisors name.  Please do not fall for their trickery.

They are not on our vendor list, never have been, and never will be.  They will try to send out free samples of products, do not agree to anything, or give out any information they request.

If you receive a phone call from them, politely tell them you are not interested in their products, ask them to remove your phone number from their contact list and hang up the phone. 

If product is shipped to your site, refuse the delivery – do not sign for it.  If you receive an invoice in the mail, please scan and send it to me and DO NOT process it in your payables batch.