7 Tips For Improving Your Lead-to-Lease Conversion
Hint: It’s all about the tech stack.
In the five years leading up to the pandemic, property management firms began to realize the need for the right tech stack to keep their businesses competitive and, ultimately, successful. But in the last few months, in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, moving processes online has become mandatory.
To their surprise, property managers find the transition has not disrupted their businesses. Rather, it has brought positive changes. That includes a better online lead-to-lease experience.
Traditionally, leasing real estate has been a face-to-face business. It has been tough for some property managers to see the benefits of moving their lead-to-lease experience online. From office walk-ins to showing properties to lease signing, this, after all, is a people business.
It’s also been a business of phone calls and manual processes. But a lot of the day-to-day tasks that keep you busy—tenant screenings, inperson applications and lease signings and unit showings—can be automated with digital tools.
So, what is a tech stack? And why is it so crucial to the lead-to-lease cycle?
Tech stack is the combination of digital tools you implement that enables your business for increased units, improves revenue and reduces expenses, ultimately enhancing your net operating income. The right combination of tools will enhance conversion rates by streamlining laborious manual processes. Convenient mobile-friendly tools make it easier for prospective tenants to find your website, engage with your business and apply for one of your properties.
It’s essential to integrate the tech stack with full ERP or property management systems to get the most out of your lead-to-lease process. Here are seven tips for getting set up.
- Get the Most Out of Tenant Lead Generation
If you were asked what the most common ways to generate leads are, you would probably say signage at your properties, online listings and showings. Listings are still effective for generating leads, and putting them online has become easier with online listing widgets. By using a listing widget, property managers can create branded listings that can then be syndicated to many sites easily. Showings, however, are a little more difficult to manage as we continue social distancing practices.
Even before the pandemic struck, some property management companies were already moving toward digital solutions for showing properties. Now, the demand for self-showings and virtual tours is everywhere.
In March, Rently, a company that provides self-tours, saw a 30% increase in requests for their service, according to MSNBC. In that same month, Zillow reported a 191% increase in virtual 3D tours.
Property managers interested in self-showings can use a solution such as Rently, Showing Hero or Tenant Turner.
Social media is another great way to generate leads, particularly if you know your audience. For example, baby boomer and Gen X audiences make up a large percentage of Facebook users. Younger tenants are more likely to use Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok.
Don’t just post your listings. Sharing local and real estate news, tips, information relevant to your audience, and even fun memes will attract followers who want to engage with you. Those followers could turn into leads.
A platform like Hootsuite can help you set up your posts, schedule them and then collect data to help you make future marketing decisions.
- Improve the Tenant Application Experience
An online application drastically reduces the time it takes to collect and vet information
from prospective applicants. Most property managers aren’t allowing walk-ins right now, so emailing out applications that must be printed, filled out, scanned and
emailed back is a time-consuming process.
A mobile-enabled online portal provides one place for applicants to upload documents and submit all the information needed to apply. They can apply right after they see a property or even in the middle of the night. All of it is then stored digitally for easy access.
The right online application portal should allow for self-service. Once applications are submitted, users can check their progress online, rather than call or email for updates. If users do have a question, the portal should allow two-way communication. Property managers can screen tenants automatically and approve or deny applications online.
An online application also can help property managers cross-sell properties. If a prospective tenant applies for a property that’s not available at the time of application, or you don’t presently have something that fits the prospect’s needs, you don’t have to lose that lead. An application system with a waitlist feature keeps track of those prospects and alerts them when a property matches their needs.
- Streamline the Tenant Screening Process
Artificial intelligence and machine learning are becoming more popular. Everything from your smart home device to your favorite e-commerce site uses AI to improve user experience.
AI and machine learning can be applied to tenant screening too. An AI-enabled full screening package will include the usual credit and criminal background checks as well as evictions and delinquencies. The system will also assess your prospective tenant’s information not only for credit history and debt-to-income ratio but also for the financial behavior of the tenant. It will evaluate how a tenant pays their bills and predict payment behavior in the future as well. It compares that information to a
database of other applications and assigns the applicant a score, much like a credit score.
The score is transferable, which means you can track a tenant’s score over time, pre-screen tenants and upsell them on your properties.
The whole process saves you time and increases your ability to accept more applicants without adding more risk, so you can fill vacant units faster. It also saves you money—savings you can pass on to your owners.
- Make Signing the Lease Painless and Contact-Free
With the right tool, everything related to creating and signing the lease can live online. Instead of having tenants come to your office to sign (an unpopular choice while practicing social distancing) or scan, email or (gasp) fax signed leases and other important documents, the whole process can be digitized.
An online lease-signing tool will generate a lease automatically using predefined templates, the applicants’ location and pet status. Then your owners and your tenants can sign electronically. Finally, the tool will post the lease for owners and tenants via their perspective portals, so everyone has immediate access to an executed copy of the lease.
- Online Payment
In April, the Wall Street Journal reported a 13% increase in rent paid by credit card from the previous month. And as owners make that option more available, it’s likely tenants won’t go back to paying by check.
A software solution that facilitates lease signing also should allow multiple ways for tenants to make their rent payments, including credit card, cash, POS and ACH payments. Once a tenant signs the lease, they can make their first, last and security payments through the same portal.
An online payment system will allow tenants to pay their rent and other fees online moving forward. No more waiting for checks to come in the mail. With an online payment system, you can collect, track and send notices much more quickly.
- Consider Using a Concierge Service
Finally, think about using a concierge service to help your tenants settle into their new home. A service such as Citizen Home Solutions, Easy Move, or Moving.com will get in touch with your new tenants to help them move and set up their utilities, cable and internet service. They can also provide community information, such as how to get children registered for school.
It’s a digital way to go the extra mile. Tenants remember little touches like that, which will make them more likely to recommend you and your properties in the future.
- Don’t Forget About the Experience
Just because you’ve set up all these automated systems doesn’t mean your job is finished. Although these tools will make getting and converting leads easier, they all must work together to make the experience seamless for prospects, tenants and owners—and for you.
One way to do that is through a customer relationship management (CRM) tool. CRM software helps you manage and nurture leads through the entire process until the prospect signs the lease.
A property management system with an open API created specifically for property managers is probably the best way to build an integrated tech stack into your
lead-to-lease process. A property management lead-to-lease system will include the tools already mentioned to handle the specific needs of tenants, owners and property managers.
From the listing widget and online applications to AI-enabled screening and lease-generation, a property management portal will make the lead-to-lease experience easier and faster, allowing you to reduce vacancy rates faster and reduce cost.
Think about it. For every month a property is vacant, that’s rent your owner loses and fees your business loses. Now multiply that by the number of vacant properties across your portfolios. If you can reduce that by reducing turnover time, you’re doing both your business and your owners a great service.
For example, consider a property that rents for $1,200 a month ($40 a day). If you reduce the lead-to-lease cycle by an average of three days, that’s a $120 savings per property. If you lease 10 properties per month, that’s a $1,200 savings
per month, which can amount to $14,400 a year in savings.
A better lead-to-lease experience also helps provide excellent service to tenants and owners. And that service will lead to higher retention of both tenants and owners.
It’s neither cost-effective nor business savvy to avoid digital solutions for your property management business. If your lead-to-lease process is inadequate, you stand to lose prospective tenants and their business—and another more-tech savvy firm will pick them up.
Determine what your lead-to-lease needs are and then do some research on the solutions that will work best for you. It may be a combination of smaller apps or a full-
service SaaS platform for property managers. Whatever you choose, you will be keeping your business competitive, freeing up time and saving money to expand your services, fill your units and grow your business.
