THE CHALLENGE
Matching prospect's location preferences with their budget
When a prospective resident walks through the door, they usually know what features they want in their next home. Two bedrooms. Open floor plan. Upper level. But they also have location preferences that might not be as obvious until they tour the community in person, such as proximity to the pool or elevator, interior or exterior views, and distance from the leasing office or their assigned parking space.
For East Coast owner/operator Westminster Management, LLC, one challenge their leasing agents were faced with was identifying apartments that were in the right location within the community, without first physically touring the prospect through several apartments. Also, when a prospective resident finally chose a home that was in their preferred location, with all desired apartment amenities, there was no guarantee that the rent range was within their budget. That often meant starting the apartment search over from scratch with the prospect.
"The tour and filtering process was simply more time consuming than it needed to be."
Elaine Kozloski
Director of Training
Westminster Management
THE SOLUTION
SightMap streamlines the process
When Westminster first installed SightMap products at seven or eight of its properties a year and a half ago, the Westminster team didn’t fully anticipate how the SightMap product would revamp and streamline the tour experience for both prospective residents and onsite teams, according to Elaine Kozloski, director of training at Westminster.
Whereas leasing agents previously spent a fair amount of time showing a number of apartments to each prospect just to narrow down their preferences, SightMap now helps onsite teams focus each apartment search from the onset.
"For the onsite team, it just makes it so much easier to narrow down the units that they’re going to show."
Elaine Kozloski
Director of Training
Westminster Management
“They can say, ‘Based on what you’ve told me – your price range, your move-in date, the size of the apartment you’re looking for – these are the apartments that fit that criteria. Here’s one over by the dog park, here’s one by the pool, here’s one that’s on the greenbelt. Which do you like best?’
“It really helps them find that perfect match for prospective residents. It helps them spend their time more efficiently, showing those apartments that suit the prospective resident better.”
Elaine Kozloski
Director of Training
Westminster Management
Kozloski said the ability of SightMap to integrate with Yardi also provides incredible clarity in terms of pricing and saves time when explaining the different factors that establish rates.
“Our prices change every day based on availability and the rental rates vary based on the lease term that you sign. Being able to integrate Yardi with Engrain products is helpful because it brings that pricing matrix over to SightMap,” Kozloski said. “It’s all right there on the grid and provides a lot of transparency to the prospect. Otherwise, it kind of feels like you’re just throwing numbers at them and it can be very confusing.
