SWEET LEASES
Created in 2001, American Campus Communities’ Leasing Administration & Marketing System (LAMS) has been a blessing for the student housing developer. By providing real-time property data, LAMS arms ACC with critical information necessary to achieve peak performance. For example, LAMS provides the historic data necessary to determine whether a property is leasing up at the same rate that it did in previous years. Even more importantly, LAMS tracks traffic to the property and lease closing ratios on that traffic.
—LAMS tells us whether we have a traffic issue and therefore need more marketing, or if it’s a price issue, where we need to decrease our prices,—explains Jennifer Beese, senior vice president of leasing administration for ACC. The system also pulls information from ACC’s Web site, determines how many people visit and request information, and automates almost all of the leasing efforts.
All of this gives the management team a competitive edge.—The industry is still decades behind in the development of standardized operating systems for student housing,— says ACC president and CEO Bill Bayless. —That’s what makes us different and unique. We’ve invested the time and resources in developing our own operating system, and the fact that for 14 quarters we have averaged more than 6 percent NOI growth speaks to the strength of our operations. That’s eluded most companies in this sector.—