Bring community feeling to your urban property
Do the opposite of what many landlords currently do. Bring what people love about the suburbs into New York.
Build Community.
Without actively engaging in the tenant experience – and making investments to improve that experience, landlords and owners neglect their greatest source of influence over rents and tenant turnover.
Let’s face it, in New York City buildings are commoditized like thumb tacks. This is because the average property neglects all the opportunities it has to differentiate itself.
Property Management is business management. And the greatest businesses focus first on meeting the needs of their customers. Ask any good VC such as —-this one— and they will tell you that a great business model is a great need solved.
But what does this mean for real estate and real property? Well, this means that great real estate owners and managers are similar to other types of businesses. It means, as well, that their success is not always accidental or lucky because they focus on bringing real value to current and future tenants. In real estate this value is the ability to live and work in a supportive environment.
In a place like New York City, this is where there is an opportunity for a property to differentiate itself.
Keeping costs down is a sure way to increase NOI, but the reckless allegiance to this principle ignores the reason why anyone chooses to live in your property in the first place Originally you tenant made the choice to live in your building over others they could have lived in. Consequently, anything that you can do to make them like living there more will make them more responsive and collaborative community members.
Know & engage your community
One of owner’s surest routes to increasing the value of their property is by taking an active interest in their tenant’s experience. Regular notices and encouraging the interaction of management and tenants cuts down on illegal sublets, unauthorized residents and pro-longed maintenance issues.
Changing building decorations with the holidays and holding informal meet and greats are excellent ways to get tenants more invested in living in your building. Hold a bulletin board so that your building can be a community.
Invested tenants will be willing to pay higher rents and less likely to leave.
