by threshold | Aug 11, 2021 | Creative, Design, General, Marketing, Thought Leadership
Written by Emily Barker, Graphic Designer
In the midst of the murder of George Floyd and the ensuing protests around the U.S., the design community revived discussions of anti-racism and activism and how it fits into the field of Graphic Design. Just what exactly does designing for social change look like? Specifically in the field of marketing and advertising, the topic of social justice can often feel at odds with the day-to-day worklife in an agency. That’s especially true in the field of real estate–centered design, where the emphasis is often ‘heads-in-beds’ and being 100% leased up, without much room for discussions on equity. However, this sort of all-or-nothing thinking, especially in fields that are complicated, nuanced, and related to issues of housing and equity, can stymie conversations on race and equity before they even get started. The truth is that there are many avenues toward anti-racist marketing while also meeting the needs of clients whose focus is on leads and leases, and real estate designers have a unique position in advocating for those anti-racist strategies.
Creating Historically-Informed Real Estate Design
Anoushka Khandwala in her article entitled “What Does it Mean To Decolonize Design” talks about understanding the schema of one’s own history as a way to re-examine motivations and find new and better modalities of design for the future. She argues that, “With every design choice we make, there’s the potential to not just exclude but to oppress; every design subtly persuades its audience one way or another and every design vocabulary has history and context.”
What can that mean for us as real estate designers? At Threshold we delved into the history of redlining and the Fair Housing Act as a way to better understand the industry and its numerous failures and shortcomings. This meant a combined team of creative and digital staff researched the history of the Fair Housing Act and redlining to create an agency-wide presentation of the history of the Fair Housing Act and red-lining. The creative team made social posts outlining the history of redlining and the creation of the Fair Housing Act during the 1960’s Civil Rights Movement. For more information on redlining and how it denied Black American’s housing and generational wealth in the U.S. please click here.
What this revealed to us was that, as real estate marketers, we had an obligation to help our clients adhere to the FHA rules and regulations. Strictly speaking this meant using photos of diverse individuals in the marketing materials, ensuring that websites were ADA compliant, and using FHA and ADA icons. But it also revealed holes in the system or gray areas where we could advocate for our clients to choose inclusive marketing and branding strategies and also choose to go above and beyond in their digital marketing strategies to prioritize inclusivity.
How Designers Can Be Advocates for Social Change
In Jarrett Fuller’s article on Isometric Studios he describes the studio as one that is “rethinking the way in which designers build a better world”. The founders Andy Chen and Waqas Jawaid describe their clientele as broad: “We’ll take on any kind of client who demonstrates a desire to think about what authentic inclusion looks like, what foregrounding marginalized narratives looks like.” The article goes on to describe the work of Isometric as that of advocates as well as designers.
This is a familiar role for designers as we are already advocating for good design as we talk to our clients about our work and advise them on the best choices for their brand. Isometric Studios would take that same advocacy a step further and challenge the client’s perspective on social issues when needed and advocate for development of brands that support the greater social good. Sometimes this advocacy can look like recommending that a client incorporate people of diverse races in their lifestyle photography or choosing a logo that celebrates the existing community culture where their new development will be built.
One important way to have these conversations with clients is to directly addressing the elephant that is so often in the room: gentrification. By addressing this openly we are better able to advocate for our clients to help them maintain a positive reputation and resident satisfaction. These types of conversations present the opportunity for us to simultaneously advocate for our client and the greater community’s needs by encouraging our clients to create positive connections with their communities.
How do we ask our clients to connect with the communities they will exist in? Here are a few suggestions:
- Hosting events for the neighborhood at the property
- Striking mutually advantageous partnerships with local businesses
- Resident appreciation events that feature goods and services from the local community
- Hiring local instructors to teach fitness, art, or meditation classes
- Hiring local artists to design artwork for the property
- Host a concert of local musicians
- Offer communal spaces to local groups for weekly meetings
- Organize volunteer days with residents or staff in the local community
The point of these conversations and ongoing partnerships with the community isn’t to whitewash the real estate industry, but to offer real-world pathways for community engagement for our clients.
Isometric Studios, in their interview with Jarrett Fuller describes their name’s origin as “a floor plan drawn at a thirty degree angle where the same scale is used for every axis, creating a non-distorted image. ‘It’s an ideal that isn’t really possible,’ Jawaid said. ‘But we’re interested in that ideal. We’re designing for that ideal.'”
In the same way, we can also struggle towards a more ideal design practice in real estate design. We can become advocates for creative work that will be better suited for this current, complex, and multicultural world and our clients will benefit from the nuance that design will bring to their brands.
by threshold | Apr 19, 2021 | General, Marketing
While 2020 threw a deluge of uncertainty onto the student housing market, things are beginning to look up for student housing in 2021. As vaccinations increase and communities across North America are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, we’re glad to report that student living communities have something to be optimistic about in the coming months.
Wondering what the market trends signal for student housing in 2021? We’ve rounded up current insights on leasing, demand, and new development that can help you make informed decisions going into 2021 and 2022.
Student Housing Leasing and Demand:
With universities announcing movement toward in-person semesters in the fall, student housing communities are seeing an overall increase in applications. That means that for most, it’s a good time to resume or increase marketing efforts to drive more leases. After all, as schools announce in-person classes, there is a direct correlation in leasing numbers. And some schools have also changed freshman living requirements due to the pandemic, so in many cases, there’s a larger pool of students looking to live off-campus.
Even when campuses are staying remote, there’s plenty of hope for student housing communities. Communities located near campuses that have gone remote have only seen about a 10% dip in leases on average, likely because many students want to stay on campus and have a student experience as close to normal as possible.
However, the numbers also vary based on the size of the school. Markets with larger schools expect to exceed leases from last year, although smaller schools in smaller markets could be impacted more heavily in lease declines.
Overall, market leasing is behind, but leasing incentives can help achieve a stable leasing percentage. Make sure you clearly display special rates on your website so that more prospects are motivated to reach out for a tour or application start. It’s also smart to use Google My Business posts and digital ad campaigns to highlight your special rates.
Student Housing Development:
While rebrands were common in 2020, new developments were down, not surprisingly. The good news is that investment demand is still there and has actually increased due to pent-up demand. Investor involvement has also been a common cause of rebrands as interested investors are more selective about finding the right partner in the right market, resulting in more investor relationships that are more…well…invested.
Some new developments are now working to stay ahead of anticipated changes to on-campus housing inspired by the pandemic, which could bring on-campus housing design more in line with off-campus student apartments. For example, some campuses are working to offer more “private” housing options like townhomes or cottages, which would avoid the downsides of the communal bathrooms and kitchens that are common in dorm-style living.
High-quality assets have had luck in finding stable lenders, but overall lenders are being more selective, although capital is plentiful. Still, student housing is more attractive post-pandemic because of the low volatility cash flow nature of the business and consistent sustainability in revenue.
Insights from the Multi-Family Market: Investor POV
Unsurprisingly, multi-family sales volume was down 28% in 2020 vs. 2019, but there was significant rebound in Q4. Overall, multifamily was comparatively one of the least-impacted sectors. Although apartment vacancy did rise during the pandemic, CBRE expects a full recovery by early 2022 with affordable housing as one of the star verticals. CBRE Research also expects to see multifamily investment volume rebound with 33% growth.
The seasonal nature of student leasing means this rebound could be delayed for student housing communities, but overall we can expect a similar timeline for things returning to normal for student housing communities. Offering more flexible lease terms could help student housing properties see this rebound sooner, as lingering hesitancy among students in spring and summer of 2021 could fade away by winter and we could see an influx of students looking to move into an off-campus apartment for the Spring 2022 semester.
Trends To Watch:
New developments and established communities alike should be anticipating changes in the wants and needs among student renters. We expect to see a preference for large units and outdoor amenities, for example, which could make now a good time to implement renovations and upgrades, especially while vacancy remains higher.
Some investors who had been pursuing commercial assets (e.g. office, hospitality, and retail assets) are now looking to deploy equity in apartments; increased demand has created lower yield requirements and increased valuations.
Finally, it goes without saying that amid an economic recession, student renters will be looking for affordable housing—a trend that may prove to be at odds with the desire for larger units. Highlighting the affordability of smaller units could therefore be a promising way of overcoming the preference for more spacious units. Again, offering special rates and advertising “starting at” prices will be a strong tactic for the upcoming leasing seasons.
by threshold | Feb 10, 2021 | General, Marketing
While many student housing brands have already weathered the immediate impact of COVID-19, the future of student housing in 2021 and beyond remains uncertain. We can anticipate that there will be long-term changes to the student housing landscape, but just how will COVID-19 change student housing next? Will any student housing trends return to a pre-COVID state once wide-spread vaccination and herd immunity is achieved? What new trends will emerge even as the virus’s immediate impact wanes?
Today we’re exploring those questions and making predictions for what’s next for existing communities and new student housing developments across the US.
Fewer Students Will Attend Universities
Since university enrollment was already falling before COVID-19, we can expect that the uncertainty introduced by 2020’s pandemic will only accelerate that trend. The effect will likely be even more pronounced among international students, for whom the pandemic threw into sharp relief the challenges of attending a university that’s far from home. Those challenges were further complicated by the Trump administration bringing anti-immigrant sentiment and the difficulty of getting a visa to new levels. While the Biden administration will likely reverse that trend somewhat, things still won’t be easy for international students. While many student living communities go out of their way to court international students, international students have seen how uncertain their ability to attend school in the US can be, and may respond by choosing to attend university outside of the US.
With both domestic and foreign young people less likely to enroll in American universities, student living communities will find it more difficult to maintain high occupancy rates under their current models. However, other factors may off-set that trend somewhat.
Those Who Do Attend May Opt for Off-Campus Housing
Because many universities did not accommodate students in on-campus housing during the pandemic for health and safety reasons, on-campus housing may no longer seem like a safe option for today’s undergraduate students. This means that those who do attend traditional universities may opt to live in private or university-private partnered housing communities.
Off-Campus student housing communities can take advantage of this with messaging that calls attention to the benefits of housing that is independent of university safety guidelines while also keeping them away from crowded campuses when the need arises.
Demand For Shorter, More Flexible Lease Terms Will Rise
his time of uncertainty has left many renters, students included, looking for added flexibility in their housing contracts. While many student housing communities have traditionally stuck to a 12-month lease term without the option to sublet, the student housing market may need to offer more flexible lease contracts to overcome concerns in this area.
Similarly, demand for by-the-bed leasing will also rise, but the impact of this shift will be less drastic on the market, since many student living properties already offer this payment model.
“All-Inclusive,” “Private,” and “Spacious” Will Be Big Selling Points
With the pandemic forcing students to adjust to a new student lifestyle that confines them to their apartment, we can expect to see a wave of students looking for more spacious accommodations. Likewise, a post-pandemic student will value the privacy offered by private bed and bathrooms, so students may opt to avoid shared bedrooms. Bed-bath parity will also be desired, to cut down on germ spread.
Communities that provide ample room for students to live in will be desirable—fully-equipped kitchens, in-unit washer and dryer, and spacious bedrooms will be essential—while dorm-like accommodations that offer cramped quarters without a full appliance package will be less popular.
Finally, high-speed internet included in rent will continue to rise as a major selling point, and students will likely avoid student housing that doesn’t offer high-speed internet options.
Communities without these features may be forced to renovate or risk losing out on a shrinking student renter pool.
Health-Promoting Amenities Will Come Into Vogue
As they look for new ways to entice a smaller, more hesitant renter pool, student housing communities will turn to new and upgraded amenities to generate excitement and assuage health concerns. We expect to see enhanced air purification systems, package lockers, food delivery lockers, keyless entry, and added sanitation measures become common among new developments, while existing communities may launch a wave of renovations as they work to adapt to changing sensibilities.
Similarly, we will likely see a rise in green/sustainable amenities as climate concerns coincide with a focus on health and safety. This trend had already begun before the pandemic and will likely continue as Gen Z’s already climate-conscious students have even more reason to prioritize a lifestyle that feels clean, green, and healthy for both themselves and the environment.
“Luxury” Student Living Will Rebrand
With frugally-minded Gen Z, the term “luxury” can ring a little tactless, especially as the world anticipates an economic recession that will further stratify the haves from the have-nots. While some student communities may lean into their luxury status, hoping to attract wealthy student renters, many will need to rebrand in order to appeal to a broader audience of Gen Z students looking for affordable, practical, inclusive apartment communities.
Some Student Living Properties Will Make The Shift to Multi-Family or a Blended Model
With university enrollment rates continuing to drop and virtual classes becoming more common even before COVID-19 radically altered the higher learning landscape, purpose-built student housing developments are bound to slow in 2021. Not only that, but a wave of existing student housing communities have begun making the switch to multi-family, adopting a hybrid marketing approach that targets both university students and non-student renters in order to fill vacancies.
We expect this trend to continue, prompting a wave of rebrands, website updates, digital ad campaign refreshes, and more as student housing communities work to shed their associations with the student lifestyle in order to appeal to a wider variety of prospects.
by threshold | Dec 10, 2019 | Digital Marketing
Internet Listing Services (ILSs) have long been a major part of the marketing strategies of real estate brands, and it’s not hard to see why. These online listing sites like Apartments.com, Apartment Finder, and Zillow help real estate brands ensure their properties show up in Google search results, driving clicks and conversions while freeing up the property management to focus on concerns beyond digital marketing strategy.
However, ILSs may not be the best marketing option for real estate brands today, and a shift away from these services is already beginning within the real estate industry. There are a few key reasons for this, which we’ll discuss, but the main takeaway is this: internet listing services simply aren’t worth the money real estate brands spend on them—at least, not when relied on as heavily as they traditionally have been.
So what should real estate brands be doing instead? Well, the answer is complex, and we’ll get into it, but the short version is that these brands should be diversifying their digital marketing mix. Let’s talk about why and how.
Internet Listing Services Are Easy But Not Efficient
We’ve already touched on why real estate brands have been putting their marketing dollars into ILSs: it makes things simple. It is a truth universally acknowledged that most property managers have enough on their plate without worrying about how to optimize their digital marketing strategy. Many real estate brands choose to let ILSs worry about that stuff for them, knowing they can benefit from the strong SEO and SEM of established ILSs that prospects already recognize and use.
However, real estate brands are beginning to understand that they’re not getting as much bang for their buck this way. While ILSs do bring in leads, brands are likely to pay a much higher cost per lead than they would on other digital marketing strategies like paid search or retargeting ads. Not only that, but ILSs could be delivering less qualified leads, resulting in fewer lead conversions, which brings us to our next point….
Internet Listing Services Can’t Verify Conversions
In other words, ILSs can’t prove their worth or provide you with analytics that help you make smart decisions about your marketing spend. That’s because when a user lands on an ILS after searching for housing, your property appears along with competing properties in the area, and users often click through several listings as they peruse their options. That means that ILSs attempting to track conversion rates by either a first-click or last-click attribution model can easily provide an inaccurate or incomplete report of your conversions from their site.
So, unless these prospects take a tour, start an application, or otherwise reach out to property staff, you may never get a chance to verify where that lead came from and how much value ILSs are really adding to your marketing strategy. And with unclear analytics, you miss out on the opportunity to evaluate and optimize your strategy along the way.
Relying Solely on ILSs Means Missing A Big Opportunity for Growth
In addition to missing out on the opportunity for continuous optimization, relying solely on an ILS for your digital marketing means limiting your brand’s marketing potential in other ways.
One of the shortcomings of ILSs is that they don’t do a good job of making your property stand out from the competition. Instead, they lump you in with your competitors and provide easy opportunities for your prospects to shift their attention to properties other than your own as they search. Other digital marketing strategies like PPC ads and SEO give you more opportunity to stand out from your competition and make a strong first (or second, or third) impression.
Speaking of making more than one impression, another shortcoming of ILSs is that they only allow you to intervene at one step of your audience’s buyer journey. Every prospect goes through a number of different stages as they search for housing, and using an ILS tends to be one of the earlier stages in the digital buyer journey. Being able to reach your audience early in their journey is great, but reaching them more than once is better. If you limit your digital marketing to just ILSs, you’ll miss out on opportunities to stay top-of-mind and catch your prospects at later stages of their journey when they might be more likely to convert.
Another way ILSs fall short is that they tend not to create strongly qualified leads when used alone. Again, that’s because the ILS user experience places your property alongside your competitors’ and limits your opportunity to wow your audience. Spending your marketing dollars to instead create a website experience that is both conversion- and search-optimized allows you the opportunity to connect with your prospects through compelling branding, provide your audience with reasons to trust, and deliver all the information a prospect needs to convert.
So What’s the Answer?
We actually don’t recommend that you stop using ILSs entirely. ILSs are currently a useful way to reach prospects at a key part of their housing search. However, there’s a lot more you could be doing.
That’s why we recommend diversifying your marketing mix. Keep ILSs in that mix if they’re helping you, but consider allocating some of the spend you’d normally put toward an ILS to other digital strategies that are cost-effective and provide more opportunities to reach your prospects and stand out from the competition.
Creating a conversion-optimized website with strong SEO is a fantastic start. Consider also launching search ads through Google Ads as well as retargeting display ads that help you stay top-of-mind for prospects who have already encountered your property through their online housing search.
If this is sounding like a lot, we get it. You can’t become a digital marketing expert overnight, and many folks in the real estate world simply don’t have the time to devote to it. Still, there’s a cost-effective way to incorporate better marketing strategies into your budget. Can you guess what we’re going to say?
If you guessed, “work with a marketing agency,” you’d be correct. Better yet, work with Threshold! We specialize in the real estate industry and we have experience working within your budget to create great marketing results. Best of all, we’ve got a team of expert digital strategists who can help you launch effective marketing strategies and optimize them as you go, so you’re always getting the most effective marketing for your spend.
If you want to learn more about digital marketing with Threshold, chat with a team member today! We’d love to get you started.
by threshold | Apr 6, 2017 | All, Marketing
Reasons to Rebrand
We get a lot of requests for rebrand projects from new property owners, especially those who’ve bought older properties. If you’re an owner taking over a property, you might want that property’s branding to fall more in line with the other communities you own. A rebrand makes a statement to the surrounding community that your property is serious about its image.
Recent renovations also cause property owners to come to Threshold for marketing ideas for apartments in the midst of a rebrand. The big payoff for big renovations is the ability to promote them. When you make renovations, and do a rebrand, you can promote your property in a whole new way to a whole new audience.
Finally, poor reputations can also cause owners to consider rebranding. Past a certain point, your property’s reputation cannot be saved, no matter how much time you dedicate to reputation management. If that’s the case, a rebrand can give your property a fresh start.
Obstacles to Overcome
Losing a name associated with negative reviews is great, but you’ll also lose plenty of equity in the community from people who’ve knew about your property’s old name. Online, you’ll have to take certain steps to combat the loss of domain and page authority that your website has built up over the years. At Threshold, we combat this by mapping your old URLs to similar pages on your new website.
There are a million moving parts to take care of when your property gets a new name, especially in today’s age of multiple online social media pages and apartment finder websites. It’s a complicated process to update every little detail, but it’s worth it—and entirely necessary— when launching a new brand into the market.
Your new site will have to build up trust with Google over time, no matter how much work your advertising agency does to combat the loss of SEO mojo from your old brand. However, property managers can drive traffic to their site right away by launching Google AdWords campaigns.
With AdWords, you can show up in search results right away because you’ve paid to be there. That will immediately drive traffic to your new site and speed up the trust-building process with Google.
Take Good Care of Your New Brand
As property managers know, renters care deeply about the lifestyle their chosen community projects. Sometimes, that projected lifestyle is even more important than the amenities or the square footage. Doing a rebrand can help your property show off an entirely different lifestyle than the old brand was putting out there. You can do all this without making major renovations.
We talked about changing the property’s social media pages to suit the new brand, but the voice and tone on social media should change as well. When we create new brands at Threshold, we don’t create them to be permanent. Instead, we develop brands that have the chance to grow and evolve as time goes on. We want our clients to be able to take ownership of their brand and wield it how they see fit. Social media is a perfect place to start trying out your new brand—your new voice.
A rebrand can involve anything from naming and a logo to a full-blown collateral update, including digital apartment marketing materials such as your website. We’re here with game-changing apartment marketing ideas when your property is ready for a rebrand. Whether you’ve just purchased a new property that needs to present a new face to the market, or you’re just sick of looking at a stagnant logo, Threshold can help.
