Lease-Up vs. Stabilized: What Content Does Your Property Need?

You might have the most beautiful community in the area, but if prospects cannot see it online, you are missing out on a lot of leads.

In today’s world, people want to experience their future homes online before they commit to an onsite tour. Others even go as far as lease sight-unseen.

Whether your property is in lease-up or a stabilized community will determine what type of digital content it needs.

Lease-up content

While your property is in development, there is a lot that you can do to meet your lease-up goals.

The first thing that every community needs to do is build a brand online. This is your chance to create buzz and let everyone know about the hot new development.

It all starts with your Google Business Listing. Creating a listing early on will help you navigate any potential leads your way. Any of your lease-up content can also live there.

Invest in 3D renderings

If you want to engage people with your property prior to opening doors, then consider investing in 3D renderings.

3D renderings allow you to create photorealistic still images and 360 tours of your property that you can then show to your prospects.

Having this type of digital content is great for lease-up as it helps people visualize the space and make a decision.

The 3D renderings can appear on your Google Business Listing, which is where most people start their apartment search nowadays.

What is really cool about this is that you can even have a 3D rendered 360 tour of the space so people can walk your property.

This content makes it possible to give remote virtual tours to any prospect which in turn helps meet your lease-up goals.

Taking a tour is still a big part of leasing, which is not possible with a development. The 3D virtual tour breaks that barrier and gives the prospect a walking experience.

Not only can your prospect take a tour of your property from any location, but also on any device such as their smartphone, tablet or a computer.

They can also take a VR tour of the property with a VR Google Cardboard. This technology will bring you to the present where VR is becoming a huge part of every industry.

It’s important to have renderings of the exterior as well as interior. People like to know how the whole property will look like and showing them both the inside such as all of the different amenities is just as important as showing how the main entrance will look like.

If you need a boost in your lease-up goals, invest in eye-catching floor plan. Having 3D floor plans is a great strategy to show off all of the model units that will be available for leasing.

Floor plans win over leases as they allow people to visually see their new home. They also do not lie so people can picture exactly how their old furniture can fit in as well as what new furniture they might need.

Outside of all of this digital content, creating a waiting list on your website can help you meet your lease-up goals. Having a landing page for people to sign up for updates gives you something to fall on when looking for leads.

Those people that sign up are the ones you should be sharing all of your digital content with such as renderings and 3D floor plans.

All of this is great digital content for the lease-up period, but it is important to update once doors open.

Once your community is up and running and you can see all of the beautiful areas in real life, it is time to shoot real photography. Having real-life images and 360 tours will show your prospects that you are all ready and open to give on-site tours.

It is also important to update your GMB with the new content. Having updated content on your listing does not only look good but it also helps with your SEO.

Google prioritizes newer and more relevant content, therefore, uploading the new photography on your page will also help with those lease-up goals.

Stabilized community content

If your community is already established, then your digital content should reflect that.

For starters, getting professional photography is a must as people tend to view communities that don’t have anything to show online as less trustworthy.

You want your prospects to see as much as possible about your community, such as photos and 360 tours.

After getting professional photos and 360 tours, posting that content on your already established Google Listing should be the next step.

Your SEO is really important when trying to stand out among other competing communities. Optimizing your google page is just as important for already stabilized communities.

SEO will help you keep your occupancy levels high and continue to get new leads from online searches.

Outside of google, having a 360 tour on your website is a great way to keep people more engaged. Virtual tours can keep a prospect on your website for 3 more minutes and tend to be the 3rd most viewed page just behind the main page and the floor plans page.

Having a virtual tour on your website might be a great way to keep people engaged while already there, but how do you get people to find your page in the first place?

That is where keywords come in. Having relevant keywords in your domain name as well as throughout your website will help your website appear higher in searches. Writing blogs and resident opinions is a great place for keywords, and they are both good reads.

Other types of content that are important for stabilized communities are resident reviews which appear on your google page.

Resident testimonials really resonate with others who want to hear the opinion of someone who already lives in your community.

Posting content on your social media of on-site events and promotions is also a great way to create excitement. Gen Z is mostly influenced by social media, and if they do not like what they see, they will be quick to swipe right into your competitor. Additionally, they will most likely influence their parents to do the same as 90% of Gen Z influence their parents purchasing.

Stabilized communities need to update their content such as photos every couple of years. This will prevent them from showing outdated areas that are no longer there, but as well help with SEO on google.

Having relevant photos is also a good practice and a way to be truthful to your prospects and show them the best representation of your property.

As you can see, the strategy for digital content is a little different for lease-up properties when compared to already stabilized communities. The key for both is to have something visual to show for and keep your prospects intrigued to learn more.

If you need help deciding what digital content you need for your community, send us a message and tell us about your next project!