Apartmentalize 2021 Schedule

The next step in maintenance team members’ development? Self promotion! Everyone agrees maintenance professionals are essential to the apartment industry. In fact, as owners considered layoffs and furloughs during COVID-19, maintenance teams were exempt and were the face of their communities! Yet skilled maintenance professionals say they’re not recognized for hard work, expertise or accomplishments. Explore how training maintenance team members to do some self-promotion goes a long way toward career development, resident satisfaction, recruitment and employee retention.

The escalating cost of waste management negatively impacts your bottom line. The average apartment property wastes thousands of dollars a year on hauling fees for dumpsters that are only 46% full. This means you’re most likely paying full price for a service that hauls half the contracted amount, and that’s just the beginning of cost inefficiencies associated with trash and recycling disposal. Learn how you can gain control and visibility into your waste management program.

Student housing assets have to lease-up every year. This is true whether an asset achieved 100% occupancy last year, two new properties open next door this year or you are operating during a global pandemic. Short term rentals can help reduce the overall leasing target, solve vacancy loss, provide an amenity to residents in the form of guest suites and provide a new source of NOI. We will explore revenue share from the viewpoint of a professional manager, exploring corporate leasing and in-house short-term rentals with case studies and the pros and cons of each approach.

If you need to reduce operational expenses and environmental impact but maximize your time and budget, where should you look? If you have a portfolio, which property should you focus on to maximize efficiency? This session provides strategies that participants can take back to their portfolios to help get the biggest bang for the buck, including expertise and commentary on techniques, tools and tactics that work whether you have one property or 1,000.

Public safety emergencies such as COVID-19 are challenging for everyone in a multitude of ways. In the rental  housing industry, economic pressures can escalate quickly as the impact on supply chain becomes evident. But quick and confident planning, including having an emergency preparedness system with suppliers in place, can ensure fast access to critical supplies. Hear from a senior purchasing manager, a properties executive and a resident services corporate director on how they overcame supply chain challenges by working with supply partners.

Expectations for marketers are higher than ever. With budgets cut, rental  housing marketers are still expected to generate more traffic, leads, tours and leases. To keep up with slashed spending, you need to build a more streamlined marketing machine—one that captures and converts prospects in the most cost-effective way. This panel explores real-world situations and tools to help you identify the best options for your specific situation. Go beyond the basics of marketing automation to reduce spending and improve the effectiveness of your overall marketing efforts.

Typecast as narcissistic, entitled offspring of Baby Boomers, “aging Millennials”—the oldest of which are nearly 40—often have quite different lifestyles from those of their younger counterparts. Otherwise known as “Generation Y,” Millennials are advancing in their careers. What separates the middle-aged members of this cohort from younger Gen Yers and the digital-native members of Gen Z? Explore Gen Z (representing about 40% of current consumers) attitudes, buying behaviors and their implications for the rental housing industry.

Leasing and marketing in the rental  housing industry requires an infinite amount of creativity. What happens when you’re expected to be a creative creature and mathematician? You become a rental  housing rockstar! Learn how to leverage math to get your desired leasing outcomes and which data and calculations are most likely to help you make a robust difference in your onsite performance. From increased closing ratios to matching your online ad budgets with the seasonality of your business, math is a critical component to your success.

The pandemic brought significant changes to the benefit packages that help attract and retain talent.  Standard PTO, EAP and fitness center discounts were replaced with meditation, massage and extended leave requests, leading companies to design varied and thoughtful responses. After the initial protocols and regulations, which benefits did employees appreciate and use? Which didn’t work well? Which will survive through 2021? Our panel of HR practitioners explores fundamental changes in how benefits are approached and created. Take home tips to consider for your own teams.

Are you prepared for any new or emerging risk? No one could have anticipated the pandemic and what it meant to your operations. However, you can take what you learned and ensure you are ready for anything new that comes your way. This session analyzes possible gaps in your existing processes, reviews new and emerging risks that have the potential to negatively impact your businesses and explores old risks that are new again. Walk away with a plan to fill in the gaps and be prepared!

There is zero doubt that apartment hunters recognize the value of online reviews. But did you know organizations can benefit as well from the power of reviews in terms of recruiting new talent, safeguarding employee loyalty and extending a competitive edge? Session panelists have flipped the script on reviews and transported the phrase “reputation management” to a completely new level. Hear key insight on how reviews have become an integral part of a company’s brand, vision and ultimately success.

Wireless technology is transforming industries, and more advances are coming to rental  housing. LoRa, Wi-Fi 6, 5G—what does this all mean for you? Dive right in to the early trends to learn about property-wide Wi-Fi and what this means for residents, staff and operators. Walk away feeling ready to parse through potential options to decide on and implement a solution that steps up your community’s technology experience!

Deciding to invest in remodeling your asset is never easy, but this session guides you through a real-life case study, providing knowledge stemming from missteps (both literal and metaphorical) and offering tips and tricks to make your project successful. Covering pricing, vendor selection, contract execution, design elements, marketing and resident communication, this session takes you on a one-of-a-kind journey through the back-office door into rooms where decisions were made and lessons learned, leading a group of seasoned professionals to become renovation experts.