At Signature Community properties, new move-ins are scheduled to receive an hour of free service from the maintenance staff, who offer jack-of-all-trades services from putting a bookshelf together to moving in boxes. Residents also get a Signature loyalty card, a pre-loaded debit card that offers special discounts with both neighborhood vendors such as the local pizza joint and companies such as Hertz and Barnes and Noble. “Whether it is for a different school or a different job, people have opportunities in life, and one of those opportunities should be to pick up and move and still stay within a great community,” Frankel says. “If you are going to be a lifestyle brand as opposed to a real estate company, you need to give residents the opportunity to pick and choose the things they want—including where they want to live.”
Resident Files More Than Adequate Notice A personal touch ensures residents in a forced relocation will check back in after they check out.
When it comes to the delicate process of relocating an entire resident base at once, Rosana Montequin has one credo: Kids love hotels, but parents hate them. As vice president for relocation and development consulting services at Arlington, Va.-based AHC Housing, Montequin has been overseeing asset relocations for AHC’s 28 properties across Virginia and Maryland for the past 12 years.
Whether for demolition or remodeling, full-scale resident relocations are never fun. But they can be managed effectively to minimize the impact on residents. The key, Montequin says, is to make the residents “feel” the move as little as possible. “Hotels can be quite impersonal,” she explains.
With mandated 120-day notices to vacate, there’s no reason property managers cannot be prepared to personally handle residents on the move. Step one is to identify properties (hopefully within the company portfolio) that are nearby and offer a similar brand and lifestyle. “Your lead time is critical,” Montequin says. “You’ll need four to six months in advance to negotiate with other properties for master or partial priority leases.”
And when its time to give notice, don’t just tape legalities to the door in absentia. AHC provides residents with documents explaining the entire relocation process, hand-delivered to the door by a property manager who is fluent in both English and Spanish. “We always do it in person,” Montequin says. “Every family has a story and a situation, and you don’t know at what point in their life the notice to vacate falls on them.” AHC also reimburses all moving expenses. Residents can be reimbursed for itemized expenses or can receive a lump sum relocation check in an amount predetermined annually by the U.S. Department of Transportation and posted online at www.fhwa.dot.gov/real-estate/fixsch96.htm.
WHY GOEST THOU? Approximately 14 percent of the population annually pulls up stakes. The eight most common relocation reasons cited by renters are below.
28%
Relocating for work
27%
Just want a change
23%
Moving to be closer to work
16%
Can afford something nicer
16%
Want something less expensive
16%
Going to/just graduated from college
12%
Getting married/moving in with significant other 9% Issues with current management company
SOURCE: Apartments.com 2008 National Renter Survey
