Apartment & Real Estate Marketing Blog

In the rental market where so many apartment buildings look the same, the ability to add value to your product is absolutely necessary. There is no doubt that in the absence of value-added services or features, all buildings can be driven down to the most bottom line – price. The problem? When you are only selling price you don’t have anything to differentiate you from the rest of your competition.  Worse yet, you’ll never be able to rent at any higher margin than your neighbour.

So, how do you add value for your customer?  I’ve gathered a list of some ideas that can add value for a renter.

Loaner Closets
Why not offer residents access to some casually used items?  It will save them some money and cut down on the storage space needed to store the items.  Try including things like:

1. • Tools & Drill
   • Vacuum Cleaner
   • Carpet Cleaner
   • Jumper Cables
   • Hide-away Bed
   • Hotel bellman cart
   • U-Haul Dolly
   • A card table

Offer Wireless High Speed Internet Access (WiFi)
Starbucks did it, McDonald’s did it, you can do it too.  Why not offer WiFi to all your residents?  Free internet access is a great draw in this day and age.  A suggestion would be to keep the number of hours limited per resident to ensure costs are kept under control, but it would still be a great draw for any rental.

Concierge Services
I thought this was a great idea that I found on the internet.  For high-end buildings consider offering added services like a hotel concierge.  Helping residents with grocery bags, arranging theatre tickets or restaurant reservations are a few examples.

Gym Memberships
Many gyms will consider making bulk discounts for multiple memberships.  This presents a great opportunity for offering leasing incentives.  When considering many companies will offer a free month’s worth of rent this option may be more economical.

Pet Sitting
For pet-friendly buildings a great idea would be to offer pet-sitting for residents who go on vacation.  Pet owners would like nothing more than to not have to leave their pets in a kennel while they are away.  Offering to look in on their animals would be a great value added service.

There is little doubt that coming up with a value-added idea requires creativity, innovation and a willingness to out-work your competitors. But the real sad truth is that if you continue to sell your units based on price alone, price will continue to rule and I guarantee you that you’ll have a competitor that will take one or several of these ideas and put them into place.