Case Study: What do residents really want at a Class A residential building?
When I rebranded my existing company into Elevated Living 3 years ago I had a hypothesis-
In the future, residents will expect a comprehensive all-in-one technology & services solution that saves them time, enhances their lifestyle, and offers them endless opportunities to connect with neighbors within their community. Lifestyle will be a huge driving force of how residents determine where to live.
Finally, after 3 years of working on a unified resident lifestyle technology platform and over 118 buildings using it, we have some excellent data from multiple asset classes and various asset types (new lease-up versus existing buildings).
Here is what you can learn from this article:
- How do residents’ expectations of services, technology, and lifestyle change depending on what physical amenities are offered at the building.
- How buildings with less physical amenities can use creativity to drive engagement.
- How to get your building to the top 1% when it comes to tenant engagement through the use of services, events, and technology.
- How did buildings’ tenant engagement fare throughout this pandemic?
Part 1: Selecting buildings for our Case Study
For our first case study we selected a brand new lease up and a property management’s existing portfolio of buildings for the second study.
Wolf Point East: We started working with this beautiful 698 unit property managed by Hines in March 2020. One of the strengths of this property is their on-site team. We we were able to work together with the management and leasing team to create a fully integrated on-boarding experience for new residents moving in. We went as far as helping residents book a handyman the day of their move-in to help assemble furniture, mount their TVs, and hang their artwork. Promoting a high-end lifestyle, events, and services was a huge selling point to all new residents. PMS used: Entrata
Grand Plaza, Eleven Thirty, & 1350 N Lakeshore — We started working with multiple Draper and Kramer (D&K) managed communities in 2020. While the cases study above utilized a brand new lease up, we wanted to understand how our “Full Service Program” works when we implement it within buildings that are already fully occupied. We were fortunate enough that we were able to launch this system with great support from the regional and on-site property management teams. We selected these buildings as part of our case study because D&K management made it a point to keep residents highly engaged over the last few months (virtually, on-site, and outdoor). Because of that, their communities had some of the highest resident engagement scores that I’ve seen in 2020. PMS used: RentCafe/Yardi
Please note that while we only included Grand Plaza, Eleven Thirty, and 1350 N Lakeshore in our case study article — D&K’s other properties also yielded similar results as we employed similar software and programming.
Part 2: Programming and Technology Implemented in all Case Studies
All buildings in our case studies implemented our full service program. What does full service mean? Each building implements the following:
- Branded All-In-One Resident Mobile App
- Our Dedicated Event Planner
- Our Hotel Style, On-Site Personal Services Providers
- No other resident facing apps, services, or systems besides existing accounting software
Resident Mobile App features a social calendar, resident bulletin, document vault, on-site personal services booking system, resident marketplace, amenity reservations, capacity control, neighborhood perks program, and integrated rent payment / maintenance request controls (Yardi, Entrata, RealPage, MRI). The goal here is to have residents use one main platform for daily needs instead of bombarding residents with 5–10 different apps or services, which create a confusing resident experience and lower tenant engagement.
Event Planners assist the on-site property management team with planning, managing, and executing all on-site resident events. Events range from simple things such as grab and go breakfast to a resident sip and paint night. These events are offered to residents for free as an amenity.
Our Hotel Style, On-Site Personal Service Providers were readily available to residents at the click of a button through the building’s branded mobile app. We hire, train, and manage in-house staff for these services offering residents a unified customer service experience. We believe in 4 main services that help save residents’ time, enhance their lifestyle, and give them bragging rights about their building:
- Wellness Services (Personal Training, Massage Therapy, Private Chef)
- Pet Services (Dog Walking and Grooming)
- Housecleaning Services
- Handyman services (Furniture assembly, TV Mounting, and more)
Part 3: Case Studies
Case Study #1 Results: Wolf Point East | 698 unit lease-up
Services. Services. Services. While we did minimal events due to the low occupancy during early stages of lease up — where Wolf Point East really shines is the on-site personal service bookings. As a brand new construction building with tons of amenities, and residents that expect five star technology & services, this is a perfect example of a building where our software & services shine. With over 212 unique bookings out of a total of 394 users that means that 54% of residents are using our on-site services. That is huge! The most utilized services are handyman, housecleaning, and personal training (we currently did not activate pet services due to COVID).
Wolf Point East | Managed by Hines:
Average Rent for 1BR: $2900
On-site service bookings: About 1 out of every 2 residents that moved in has booked our on-site personal services. 1 of 4 residents used our handyman service during the move-in process.
Event Attendance: About 3 out of every 10 (30%) residents participated in an event. Most residents have attended at least two events.
Summary: One thing that is for sure is that residents of this highly “amenitized” property are willing to pay more for services that help them save time. Averaging ~35 unique “first time” bookings per month since March, WPE is doing very well. Imagine the convenience factor of a fully integrated move-in experience where you can book a handyman straight through the Wolf Point East Resident App to help mount your TV or assemble your furniture the day of your move. Or maybe booking a housecleaner to help you clean up after you had friends from out of town visiting over the weekend. Some other ideas include booking a personal trainer to train you inside the building’s fitness center, a dog groomer to groom your furry best friend in the pet spa while you are at work, or booking a deep tissue deep massage after work.
Case Study #2 Results: Grand Plaza, ElevenThirty, & 1350 Lakeshore | Fully occupied during software implementation
Draper and Kramer’s plan was to focus heavily on tenant engagement during the last few months and it sure paid off. While it was hard to do traditional events in March & April, we invested heavily into offering our partners virtual & outdoor events. We would deliver goods to the property ahead of time, residents would pick it up, and they would hop on a Zoom call with the instructor. Otherwise, we would host events outdoors!
1350 N Lake Shore | Managed by Draper & Kramer:
Average Rent for 1BR: $1550
On site service bookings: About 1 out of every 5 residents booked our on-site personal services
Event Attendance: About 1 out of every 2 (50%) residents participated in virtual or on-site events. From the over 200 residents who participated in one event, they ended up attending at least 4 more.
Summary: As a fairly large building in the Gold Coast with fewer amenities than traditionally seen in more modern buildings, 1350 N Lake Shore definitely makes up for it with on-site tenant engagement. One thing I know for sure, residents at 1350 N Lake Shore LOVE to attend events and participate within their community. With over 994 total event sign-ups (averaging ~110 event sign-ups monthly) and at least 84 on-site personal service bookings (averaging ~9 unique “first time” bookings monthly) their engagement levels are floating pretty high. When social distancing is eased and things return back to normal, I expect this property to maintain 50–65% resident event engagement and expect them to increase on-site personal service bookings to about 50% over the next 12 months.
Grand Plaza | Managed by Draper and Kramer:
Average Rent for 1BR: $2400
On-site service bookings: About 1 out of every 10 residents has booked our on-site personal services since starting in May 2020.
Event Attendance: About 4 out of every 10 (40%) residents participated in virtual or on-site events. From the over 244 residents who participated in one event, they attended at least 3 more events.
Summary: Grand Plaza, located in River North, may be almost 15 years old, but it definitely has better amenities than some new construction buildings in the area. With a huge fitness center, indoor basketball court, extensive outdoor spaces, and indoor conference rooms there are definitely plenty of amenity spaces to activate. Having a huge outdoor pool and a roof deck was a huge bonus during quarantine as we were able to offer residents complimentary outdoor fitness classes five times per week along with hosting outdoor movie nights. After working with this property for five months, I can definitely say that Grand Plaza is definitely crushing it in terms of resident engagement. In a 5 month period we’ve already had over 81 residents book at least one of our on-site services (averaging ~16.2 unique “first time” bookings per month). With over 911 event sign-ups in 5 months, they are averaging 182 residents attending some sort of an event per month. Not to mention over 20,000 amenity reservation and capacity control bookings since launching. Due to the vast physical amenities offered at this property I expect Grand Plaza to increase the on-site service bookings usage up to 55–60% within the next 12 months, while maintaining at least a 50% event participation ratio.
Eleven Thirty | Managed by Draper & Kramer:
Average Rent for 1BR: $1600
On-site service bookings: About 1 out of every 5(21%) residents has booked our on-site personal services
Event Attendance: About 3 out of every 5 (60%) residents participated in virtual or on-site events. From the over 250 residents who participated in at least one event, they attended at least 2 more events.
Summary: 1130 S Michigan is located in the South Loop. With construction completed in 1967, this is definitely the oldest building that we performed a case study on. While there is an ongoing renovation to add more amenities and update the apartment units, this property is an excellent example of how important events are when it comes to tenant engagement. Over 60% of residents participated in virtual or on-site events since D&K launched their tenant engagement initiative back in April. Over the next 12 months, I expect the on-site service bookings to continue to climb to around 35–45% usage, while the events attendance to maintain or climb past 60%. We’ve learned that residents at this building definitely enjoy attending events and meeting their neighbors.
Top Four Takeaway Points:
While deep diving and analyzing all of this information here is what I’ve learned:
- Higher Rent, Higher Expectations: The residents that pay higher rent to live in these newer and highly “amenitized” buildings expect services and events to be offered as part of their apartment package. Time is a scarce commodity and that is the reason why residents are willing to pay for on-site services such as: dog walkers, dog groomers, handyman services, personal trainers, housecleaners, and personal assistants.
- Less Amenities = More Creativity (resident programming): A building that has less physical amenities compared to a brand new construction building across the street may compete by offering more tenant engagement programming. Hosting more events, experiences, and offering on-site personal services as add-ons are all ways to keep your residents happy. Based on the data it seems that building’s with lower rents / less amenities appear to get less personal service bookings (around 20% usage) but maintain high event participation (>50%). This makes sense, because if there are less physical amenities such as an on-site dog spa, massage room, or a large fitness center, residents might be purchasing those services elsewhere.
- Do you want to be in the Top 1%? One of the most important takeaways is that property managers and developers at any Class A building should work on implementing a unified software that focuses on things that residents do on a DAILY basis. Put yourself in a modern renter’s shoes — what would you use on a daily basis? My hypothesis for high-end class A buildings is that the functions residents will use daily will mostly have to do with their lifestyle needs: signing up for the weekly Saturday rooftop yoga class, attending a happy hour, booking a daily dog walker, scheduling a dog groom in the building’s pet spa, booking a session with a trainer 3 times per week, booking a houseclean every 2 weeks, scheduling a massage after work, and coordinating a handyman to help with that drawer set that take 8 hours to assemble. These are all the things that residents use on a daily basis. If you have a high end building and want to be in the top 1%, make sure the software you use will be fully unified, focus on offering amazing events & experiences, and provide residents top notch on-site services.
- Benchmark data: 20% is our minimum and up to 54% is our maximum from January 1st 2020 to October 1st 2020 (1 out of every 5 residents and 1 out of every 2 residents uses our on-site services). If that is our benchmark for on-site personal service usage during COVID that is phenomenal and we expect these numbers to grow even higher once things return to normal. Furthermore, if 30% is our minimum and 60% is our maximum (1 out of every 3 residents and 3 out of every 5 residents participates) for event participation during COVID, I also believe that these records will be shattered once all social distancing restrictions return to normal.
These buildings are doing an amazing job at engaging their residents. Props to our events team and the on-site property management teams for offering residents five star resident mobile apps, hotel style events, experiences, and services!
If you are interested in having your building consistently rank in the Top 1% for tenant engagement fill out our contact form today.
