Three Leading Apartment Operators Talk Virtual Tour Traffic During Covid-19 Era

Virtual tours mean different things to different people – including apartment operators and prospective residents – so I spoke to Holli Beckman, Vice President of Marketing and Leasing Operations at WC Smith; and Melissa White, CAM, CAPS, Director of Property Management at Perennial Properties; and Kelley Shannon, Senior Vice President of Consumer Marketing, Bozzuto, about traffic, incentives, conversions and technology.
Current Traffic
“People are adjusting to the current normal and are getting more comfortable with moving again,” White says. “Traffic has begun to increase since March. We have not achieved the same number of tours we did prior to COVID from a YoY standpoint, but things are improving. Some companies that I have spoken with are achieving YoY numbers. A lot of Perennial’s communities are in highly walkable areas, and because of precautionary health reasons, we seem to have fewer people touring just because they happen to be in the neighborhood.”
Beckman says traffic is definitely down. She chairs a DC-area property management marketing committee and says two different and highly reliable marketing vice presidents shared data that indicate their traffic is down 50 percent YoY.
White says she’s asking her teams: How many live virtual tours are prospective residents taking before they lease? “I think it’s obvious that not being able to see and feel the amenity spaces and community/neighborhood in person drastically impacts the experience for the prospective resident,” she says.
“Prospects might be adjusting the amount of time they would normally spend looking for a home. They may only ‘look’ at their to……