Hello everyone,
I hope this message finds you well. As your property management company, we strive to keep you informed about the current market dynamics and our strategies to navigate them effectively.
As you may remember from our update late last year, there has been a National slowdown in leasing activity for over a year now. After three years of steady rental rate growth, pricing came back down—compressing rental rates on single-family and multi-unit leasing.
Here’s a summary from ShowMojo’s 2024 Q2 Market Update:
(The source of this data is about 500,000 residential leases facilitated through ShowMojo)
- Extended Market Times: The average time properties remain on the market has increased significantly. This past March recorded the longest market times since 2017, with durations 5% and 36% longer than in 2023 and 2022, respectively.
- Reduced Leads: There has been a decline in the number of leads per on-market period, marking the lowest figures since 2017. Compared to previous years, March 2024 saw an 8% and 24% reduction in leads from 2023 and 2022, respectively.
- Rent Reductions: Although there was a slight improvement, with rent reductions being 1% lower than in March 2023, the overall trend still shows a 47% increase compared to March 2022.
In response to these challenges, we have been suggesting and implementing several strategies so we can navigate this market in the best way possible:
- Pet-Friendly Policies: We are encouraging pet-friendly listings, which have shown a positive impact. From 2022 to 2023, listings allowing dogs increased by 12%, and those allowing cats by 8%.
- Lease Renewals: We are encouraging you to renew leases when possible. It’s a tenant’s market right now and keeping rent price the same or even a bit lower is better than facing this current market.
- Marketing: We are enhancing our listings by removing pre-showing screening questions, thus making it easier for potential renters to schedule showings. This small change has resulted in a 69% increase in listings without pre-showing screening questions.
- Optimizing Communication: We are prioritizing rapid responses and communication with prospects through various channels, including text, email, and phone, both with our employees and using AI to ensure we meet their needs promptly and effectively.
- Best Practices: We continue to focus on best practices such as syndicating listings, optimizing showing schedules, using targeted messaging, and automating follow-ups to streamline the leasing process.
We understand that these market conditions can be concerning, but please be assured that we are committed to adapting and finding innovative solutions to maintain the competitiveness of your properties.
Thank you for your continued trust in our management services. Should you have any questions or wish to discuss this further, please do not hesitate to reach out.