For multifamily real estate, 2020 has meant change and adaptability for apartment leasing. The traditional ways of marketing, advertising, and leasing quickly adjusted to a more digital world. Luckily, technology adapted as well providing plenty of tools to help make the shift.
Prospects need properties to show them what they want to see, when they want to see it, no matter where they are in the world. Even if they are searching for “apartments for rent near me” or “apartments near me,” virtual tours and video still need to be an option.
The best tools that improve apartment leasing elevate your property’s virtual leasing capabilities. Here’s what we mean.
Virtual Apartment Leasing Tools
Virtual leasing is not a new phenomenon. For years, it has helped leasing teams with everything from filling apartments for rent, sight unseen, to getting residential lease agreements signed faster than ever.
However, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic was a catalyst for virtual touring and virtual leasing usage to skyrocket. It had to! Leasing offices closed and prospective residents could not safely travel to and from properties. Even with offices reopening, many still do not feel comfortable touring in person. Providing virtual leasing and video touring options became a necessity in 2020. So, while virtual tools were absolutely the critical tool for 2020 apartment leasing, they will remain so for years to come.
Self-Guided Tours
Self-guided tours allow in-person tours without directly interacting with the leasing team. Prospects enter the property, follow signs and tour the property alone. However efficient these tours might be, they do leave out the human element entirely. Here’s where a seamless integration between your self guided tour offering and the Realync virtual leasing platform can quickly turn these human-less apartment leasing experiences into prime virtual leasing opportunities.
Get creative and include QR codes on tour path signage for your prospects. Next, have these codes take them directly to pre-recorded videos featuring a leasing agent highlighting a particular feature or amenity. These videos are the perfect way for your team to still provide a voice and human touch throughout your self guided tour experience even without physically being there. Still curious? Watch this video to see what a Realync self guided tour looks like.
3D and 360 Tours
Today’s multi-family real estate market is crowded. Prospects are flocking to Zillow apartments or Craigslist apartments to search for communities. 3d virtual tours and 360 virtual tours often help a property stand out. Including virtual tour videos in marketing campaigns or as dynamic website content draws in prospects. Prospects view the property and determine if they want to learn more. This type of video tool brings in leads. It is effective, top-of-the-funnel marketing with the ultimate goal to engage with the prospect and convert them to a signed lease.
Live Virtual Tours
Live apartment video tours are the next logical step to getting an apartment lease form in front of a prospect. Connecting live with a prospect to answer their questions, build the relationship, and walk them through your community in real-time is the perfect way to dive deeper with a prospect and help push them from lead to lease. These tours provide the same level of impact and touring transparency necessary in apartment leasing. The prospect still gets to see, in a real, authentic way, the space they are most interested in. They can ask questions and get them answered in real-time, keeping the human connection in as close to a true face-to-face experience as you may get. After all, most leasing agents didn’t get into apartment leasing agent jobs or apartment leasing consultant jobs to NOT talk to prospects.
Pre-recorded Tours and Videos
Offering prospective residents a pre-recorded video tour is another great way for them to preview a space or to follow-up after a live tour. These videos can be unit or amenity specific as part of a first-look or apartment tour follow-up. With Realync, leasing teams can create a fully curated playlist of pre-recorded videos to send to prospective residents. It showcases all that your community has to offer in one simple (tracked) link. Bottom line? Videos are the perfect way to highlight what it could be like living in your community in a quick, real, raw, transparent way.
Use the Full Suite
Overall, leasing teams should no longer just work to get prospects to the community in person.
Leasing teams should provide a multitude of unique opportunities for the prospect to experience the property virtually. From 3d tours on the website to pre recorded video assets to live virtual tours and open houses to self guided tours to in person tours — leverage your entire suite of tools.
In the end, it’s all about connecting with the prospects in whatever means and way they desire. The power of the human to human connection, even virtual, instills trust and transparency into
the process. That’s why all of these tools work to keep the agent as a part of the process.
