Multifamily Market Outlook for 2023 and Beyond

With experts’ forecasts for the multifamily market outlook mixed for 2023, it’s easy to feel concerned or confused about what this year will bring. Some experts suggest that the multifamily sector will perform above average in 2023 despite the economic headwinds. Their claim is that demand is still steady and will remain that way because the costs of a mortgage are more than 50% more expensive than the average monthly apartment rent, keeping renters in the rental market.

Others are not as hopeful and suggest the growing economic uncertainty and low consumer confidence in the economy may translate into fewer households being formed and that decisions to move apartments will be muted if the consumers’ outlook on the economy remains lackluster.

boxes in new apartment 2021 09 08 07 31 59 utc | PERQ AI Leasing Assistant

Without a crystal ball to help multifamily marketers and operators to see the future, you are left with one choice in the matter: to assume the worst and work to ensure adequate leads to fuel occupancy.

At PERQ, we speak with multifamily professionals from property management companies (PMCs) across the nation. The topic of multifamily market outlook comes up regularly and we wanted to share with you what we we have learned about how your peers in the industry are thinking about this. Here are some ways that PMCs are preparing for the upcoming multifamily market — whatever it brings.

Doubling down on inbound marketing

If demand slows, there will be pressure on costs. To help optimize spend on paid leads, PMCs need to ensure they are getting the most “free” (vs. paid) leads from their community website as possible. You want to make sure you attract and engage potential renters through your property website without having to pay for a complete overhaul of your current site.

By utilizing interactive website tools and personalization, like the powerful ones PERQ offers, you get more tours from your unknown website visitors. In doing so, you reduce the need to spend more money on expensive lead sources, like an ILS. Using all the PERQ website features (like calls to action to capture lead information, interactive website experiences, and more) you can maximize your lead generation on your existing website without needing to ramp up your spending.

No matter where the multifamily market outlook ends up, leaning into inbound marketing just makes good business sense. You already have community websites — why wouldn’t you want to use them to your advantage and turn them into your #1 source for leases?

Saving marketing spend by recycling leads

Recycling is always a clever idea, but with an uncertain multifamily market outlook, it is necessary to help save money. To optimize marketing spend and make sure you do not pay for the same lead more than once, consider revisiting leads from prior rent cycles to see if you can get them to reengage. You do not necessarily want to add more to your already maxed onsite teams during this time, so consider automating this process instead.

Some artificial intelligence (AI) technology solutions, like PERQ, can send an automated outbound multi-touch nurture program to leads that did not rent from you last year to resurrect them now that they may be looking again around their renewal date. Allowing you to easily stay top-of-mind for those prospective renters who may be looking for their next home. By recycling leads, you won’t be spending as many marketing dollars because this person is already known to you and in your database. An ideal strategy during these uncertain times.

Improving yield from paid leads

PMCs are working to improve the yield from paid leads by working those leads with marketing nurture approaches. Automated nurture can be applied to your Internet Listing Service (ILS) leads and nurture capabilities should work every lead to tour in perpetuity. At PERQ, we don’t “dead” or give up on any leads. Our nurture data shows us that there are significant tours scheduled after many touches, which can maximize the number of tours and leases created from your paid efforts.

Being everywhere prospects are digitally

PMCs are working diligently to be everywhere their prospects are digitally. With more prospects leveraging Google Business pages, employing conversational AI on this channel to capture their attention before they even hit your website makes a lot of sense.

In order to help communities be everywhere their prospects are, PERQ has added our NLP (Natural Language Processing) chat capabilities for Google and can answer questions on your Google Business Page 24/7. This way, people can research and schedule a tour even when your office is closed. In addition, PERQ will pull those not ready to tour into the website and offer a CTA (call to action) that helps make them a known lead, so nurture can be applied automatically.

Overall,  PMCs are shifting their focus to earlier in the sales funnel. Instead of a focus on tours and leases, multifamily marketers are looking at their marketing mix, their spend, and how to optimize top of funnel lead creation. Their overall goals needs to be to get ahead of lead creation to ensure a steady flow of qualified leads for their communities no matter what the outlook is for the multifamily market.

Want help preparing for whatever the multifamily market outlook holds?