What is happening YouTube? It's Matt Faircloth. I have an interesting conversation and this
is very, very timely given where we are today, but also something that I think is going to
be the way that things go moving forward. We're currently, in April 2020 and it's very
hard to show an apartment while abiding by social distancing. How do you go?
And typically the way apartments are shown is people come to the apartment, they meet
you there at a specific time, you or your property manager, your leasing agent, whoever
and that person or you keys them into the apartment, shows them around, hey, here's
the bathroom, here's the bedroom, here's the kitchen, here's the living room, here's this,
here's that. What do you think? Do you like it? Yes, I love it here, let's take the application.
And they fill it out and they give it back to you. Perhaps even with an application fee.
Then you run back to your office, hopefully approve them and now you've got yourself a
new tenant. You go back and meet them either to sign the lease in person or to hand over
the keys, whatever it is.
There's a lot of direct interaction. If you're doing and if you guys are doing some automation
of the leasing process, you're likely not a 100% seamless yet. Now what I'm going to
describe today is a means to go a 100% seamless, a 100% touchless, a 100% abiding by social
distancing to show an apartment. Let's go. Let's hop in.
Guys, be sure to watch this video to the very end because at the very end I've got some
cool giveaways I want to give you guys and also if you guys like what we have to say,
subscribe to this video and leave a comment down below on the way that you guys are running
your real estate business while abiding by social distancing.
Another thing I want to point out here is that the method I'm going to talk about for
showing an apartment is also going to allow you as a company and as a landlord to operate
more efficiently. This is not just about social distancing, although it's very relevant in
today's time. You can also get more units leased and show more units as we'll reference
today. The method I'm going to talk about is utilized by one of our properties in North
Carolina. My property in North Carolina was able to get 10, one, zero, 10 applications
during coronavirus. Got 10 applications using the method I'm going to talk about today.
You guys need to check in on this. This is the total why, because I want you guys to
get lots of applications for you and it's because bottom line is even with social distancing,
even with the crazy world that we're in right now, people still need to move.
And once we get out of this, people are going to need to move. And you're going to be able
to show apartments without you taking your time and your leasing agents time to stand
there and show that apartment. That person could be doing other things. You could be
doing other things using the method we're going to talk about today.
Step one, the first thing you need to go a 100% social distancing on leasing is a really
good online marketing campaign. Now, my property manager in North Carolina did an Instagram
campaign, which we'll show you guys part of the Instagram feed here, what the Instagram
video feed looked like. But either way, you guys need a really good online marketing campaign
for the property. You can put stuff on Facebook Marketplace, you can put stuff on Craigslist,
you can put stuff on Zillow, Trulia, but whatever it is, you need to have a video tour. Go out
and get yourself your handy dandy cellphone. Make your leasing agent get that too, and
do a video tour of your property. Talk, walk people through it. Show why your property
is amazing and record a really nice video tour and do it yourself. Or have a video editor
stitch it together and put together a video walk through.
Look, this is one of our properties in North Carolina. This is a real unit that we own,
that we have it for rent, and this is a real Instagram video. We show the great kitchen.
We show that there's ceiling fans in the bedrooms. We share the full layout of the unit, there's
great floors in the apartment too. We show those off. This is a nice apartment and we
highlight the nice features of the apartment in the video.
Now that people have watched that and they're interested, the video will also had a call
to action. It'll say something like, "Do you like that apartment? Go here for your next
step." It'll likely be a schedule a showing link. They're going to click on that to schedule
a showing. And here's what happens next. On the apartment you're going to hang a box like
this. This is a box through an organization that we use called ShowMojo. You can also
use an organization called Rently and Rently ShowMojo are two of the players in the game.
There's other players in the space of automated showings and things like that. These boxes
are not, they're not just by those two people, but those are the two companies that I know
of that do it. I'm not promoting them. I just know those are the two companies that do that
work. But you should do your own homework on it but Rently and ShowMojo are two companies
that I'm aware of.
The way it works is the prospect will click on the link, they'll say, "I'm interested
in looking at 123 Main Street please." And 123 Main Street will be linked to the serial
number that's on the bottom of your little box. And the folks at Rently or ShowMojo will
take that call, they will ask that prospect to send in their driver's license. It's important
to get that. They'll also send in their credit card. Those two items will get sent into Rently
and ShowMojo, because here's the thing. Let's ask this question. And this is maybe something
you guys might be asking this yourself. Well, how do I let people look at an apartment without
me being there because I want to make sure they're not going to wreck the apartment.
I want to make sure that they are properly, that they're not folks that are going to destroy
the place or they're going to lock the door behind them or they're not going to go and
leave the door open and have a party with other friends in the apartment or something
like that.
Well Rently and ShowMojo, get that data from them. They get their driver's license and
their and their credit card number so that if that person does do damage to the apartment,
you now have a credit card and a driver's license, so you can turn that credit. You
can take that driver's license and give it to the police and you can take the credit
card and charge them for any damages they may have done to the apartment. Now obviously
Rently and ShowMojo Make sure that credit card is valid before they approve them to
go look at the unit.
The next thing you do is they give me temporary code that will open up this box and this box
is set up on wifi and set up on digital technology that they can put in that temporary code that
only works for a short period of time and it pops open and the key comes out so they
can show it to themselves and they say, the folks at Rently and ShowMojo can say, "Well,
when do you want to see it?" Well, I'd love to, I'm actually standing in front of the
property right now. I'd love to see it now. Okay, great. Who else can say that? For hands
on showings, no way you can show an apartment right when somebody's staying in front of
it. But with these boxes, you can.
Now they say, "I want to look on it Saturday at 1:00 o'clock. That's what I want to see
the apartment." Okay, great. Saturday at 1:00 o'clock, type in this code and it'll open
this box. That's what they do. Another thing, you can't overlap showings in those circumstances.
That's another good reason why it's good to book showings for those services as well as
so you don't have more than one person showing up at the property once. The prospect goes
in, they put in their information, key pops out, they show it to themselves. They say,
"This is great. I love this apartment. I am so grateful. I want to live here. This is
what I want." They can then go and follow up. Rently and ShowMojo will either call them
and they will close that deal for you. They'll call the prospect and say, "Hey, did you like
it?" Yes I did love it. No problem. Great. And it will also take it and close it to an
application or they'll email you and then you can take it and close it.
A few important things to note here, Rently and ShowMojo and those online resources need
to know a little more data about your unit to prevent and this is maybe a frustration
you may have now by doing hands on showings with units. You've got people that are coming
out that are either not qualified for the unit, maybe have certain circumstances that
wouldn't allow them to live in the unit anyway. Maybe they have a dog and maybe you don't
accept pets. Maybe they don't know that you have a pet rent fee that they don't want to
pay. Maybe they have whatever circumstance that they have that would preclude them from
living in that unit, but they could live in another unit that you have. You can give Rently
ShowMojo questionnaires to ask these prospects before they get the code to this. They're
not going to waste anybody's time, including their own time in looking at a unit they're
either not qualified for or it's not going to work out for them to live there.
What the results of this is, you have an interested, qualified prospect that's looked at your unit
without anybody being there with them. And if they do any damage to the unit or they
forget to put the keys back in this thing or they forget to lock the door, whatever
it is, they will get charged and the folks at Rently and ShowMojo will gladly remind
them of those things before they give them the code.
Let's fast forward. Now you've got somebody that's interested. You either get that email
in your inbox saying, "Hey, here's a prospect," so you can go chase them down yourself, get
them to file an application or Rently and ShowMojo will do it for you. Now hopefully
you're using online application services. Almost everybody's doing it this way, the
day of the paper application's pretty much gone. An online application is what you want
to use. Organizations know AppFolio, Buildium, Rent Manager, the real estate softwares that
can run real estate for you have online applications. And there's also other third party application
services which you can refer people to, to go and fill out an application, apply for
your unit, and then you go ahead and approve them.
Now, once you've approved them, people ask the question, well how do I do a lease signing?
You got to have somebody sitting right there at the table to pick up their pen and sign
the contract and then you sign too. Not so much. You can now use DocuSign or other, DocuSign,
HelloSign, digital signing technology is now accepted in all states as a legal signature.
Almost all contracts. We've signed real estate contracts using digital signing, so digital
signing is the way to go. What they call wet signatures, actual paper signing on things
is really only valid if you need a notary on something. If you don't need a notary,
most likely you can digitally sign it. And a lease contract can be digitally signed legally
and it stands up in eviction court.
Send them the lease by DocuSign. They'll review it, they'll click through it and click, click,
click, click, click. They can do it on their cellphone. Remember, they already have one
of these because they were able to use this to call to get in through this box, to send
in a copy of their driver's license and their a credit card. They can use this again and
sign their lease contract. They get a copy of the signed lease once you sign it back
in their email box, they're good to go. They can print it out and they can just keep it
on their phone for whenever they need it.
And then what's beautiful is they can pay their rent and pay their first month's rent
security deposit, all through ACH, through online protocol services. And even if you
are in a market where not a lot of people have checking accounts, that's okay. Almost
all of the services I listed, AppFolio, Buildium and there's a company called PayLease you
can look into. PayLease where a tenant can walk into stores like 7-Eleven, Walmart and
check cashing places. It might be hard to do during social distancing, but perhaps they
could find one of those places that are open or perhaps they can drop a check off somewhere
and maybe you pick it up later.
But most likely you don't have to do any of that because it will be okay, just ACHing
you the money and you can just digitally transfer the funds so they can pay the security deposit,
first months rent, all that done. Now you're funded, you've got a signed contract, you
just give them another code to this thing and then they go out there and they type in
their little code and out pops their keys and they can pull up their U-Haul van and
they can move into their apartment. And after they're all moved in and settled, you or your
property manager go out there and remove this box and put it on your next rental.
Guys, as I said before, to highlight a few things. Right now in today's society, it's
extremely important to be able to show apartments and abide by social distancing so that we
can all get back being a healthy America and move forward. Now, once we're there, hands
off showings are the way to go because it allows you to increase your company efficiency.
Guys, if you like this video, give it a thumbs up, make sure to share it with somebody else
and leave a comment down below because I want to hear about other ways that you guys are
doing social distancing protocol, but still running your real estate company and just
other tools you guys are using. Leave it down below. We want to hear about it and have a
nice conversation.
Thanks for watching guys. Here's a couple of videos I thought you guys might like so
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