Maximizing Rental Success

A Brooklyn developer just leased 25% faster than 7 competing projects in a 3-block radius. Rents 10-20% above market. With 18 more lease-ups in the pipeline, many backed by institutional developers with bigger budgets and stronger brands. The edge wasn't location or capital, but a design-oriented focus on the drivers of real rent premiums. Fve lessons from Charney Companies' development at Union Channel in Brooklyn, New York: 1/ Unit mix. Pulled architectural plans for every competing project in the market. 3-bedrooms were 3% of supply but demand pointed to 14%. Union Channel tripled the market average. They were the first unit type to fully lease. 2/ Studios. Market average was 500 sqft at $3,500/month. Too much space, too much rent. Union Channel built 400 sqft studios — 20% smaller, 10% cheaper. Leased 50% faster than the rest of the building. 3/ Living rooms. Of every layout variable tested across hundreds of units, living room width was the single strongest predictor of rent per sqft. Every other layout decision was calibrated to protect it. 4/ Amenities. Conventional wisdom says more amenities = more value. The data says the opposite. Quality of select amenities beats breadth. Fitness center quality had the strongest correlation with rent per sqft. They hired a gym consultant instead of designing in-house. 5/ Marketing. 20% of leases came directly from social media — 4x the rate on prior projects. Strategy built around the neighborhood, not the building. Murals on construction fencing. 3,000 organic Instagram followers before opening. These five decisions account for 73% of the value created at Union Channel. All made before the building opened. The data exists in every market. Most developers just aren't looking. Full case study from Andrew Steiker-Epstein in this week's Thesis Driven newsletter. Link in comments.

How to market vacant apartments: For long term multifamily owners, vacancy is death. Your key expense lines (property tax, insurance, etc.) don't fall with lower occupancy, and you're never getting the rent for those vacant days back. Yet many owners & managers fail to take the most basic steps to fill units quickly, like: 1. Properly price the units - At least in LA, every properly priced apartment will rent within weeks. How do you know if your unit is priced properly? You need to make sure the rest of your marketing is good (see below), then track inquiries & tours. For a single unit: Getting 5-10 inquiries a week leading to 3-4 tours? You're probably priced right. 2. Actually ensure vacancies are listed - You would be amazed at how easily vacant units can slip through the cracks and never make it onto the relevant listing sites. Someone needs to regularly compare your list of vacancies and to your list of ads and make sure they match. 3. Use good photos - We see so many listings, even for very high-end units, with awful pictures. There's really no excuse, bc you can take good pics once and use them forever. Strongly recommend staging; we use "real" staging for our own projects, but high quality digital staging works, too. Just make sure whoever does it has good taste (and if you can't tell the difference, that's a sign you need to find someone who can). 3. Write engaging ad copy - No prospective tenant wants to feel like they're moving into a warehouse for people. Yet that's how many ads make buildings sound: "Good freeway access. Clean building. Appliances provided" - barf. You want the ad copy to sound like it was written by someone who chose to live in the building because it's awesome / in an awesome area / etc. 4. Make your leasing team respond quickly - You work so hard to get prospects to find your listing, like it, and reach out to find out more. Don't let your leasing team leave them hanging. (This is mostly fixed by creating the proper incentives... your team should be salivating at getting a commission every time a lead comes in.) 5. Minimize the time between applicant approval and lease signing - The cliche is true: Time kills deals. Make whatever changes you need to make to your system to get those leases out to approved applicants ASAP via some kind of electronic signing system. [Finally: If you need property management help for your Los Angeles portfolio, please reach out!]

Leasing a petrol station is not just about location. It is about finance, operations, competition, traffic behavior, and long-term sustainability. Yet many evaluations are still done based on one sentence: “The station is on a main road, so it must be good.” That is a dangerous shortcut. A professional evaluation methodology should cover at least these areas: 1- Traffic & Accessibility - Daily traffic count - Entry and exit convenience - Visibility from both directions - Ease of turning into the station - Truck accessibility - Peak-hour congestion 2- Competition Mapping - Number of nearby stations - Competitors’ pricing strategy - Fuel brands around the area - Loyalty programs in place - Competitors’ service quality and shop performance 3- Fuel Demand Potential - Commercial vs residential area - Fleet presence nearby - Industrial activity - Future urban development plans - Day/night traffic behavior 4- Site Operational Efficiency - Tank capacity and layout - Ease of fuel replenishment - Number of dispensers - Queue management capability - Safety compliance 5- Non-Fuel Revenue Potential - Convenience store potential - Coffee and QSR opportunties - ATM presence - EV charging readiness - Oil change & automotive services 6- Financial Evaluation - Expected throughput - Gross margin potential - Operating expenses - Utility costs - Staffing requirements - Payback period - Lease structure and escalation clauses 7- Future Risks Before signing, ask: - Is a new highway planned nearby? - Could traffic patterns change? - Is the area growing or declining? - Are environmental regulations changing? - Could a competitor open next door? The methodology is simple: - Start with accurate data - Validate with physical inspection - Build realistic scenarios - Compare with similar sites you run. - Benchmark against competing stations. A bad station lease can impact profitability for years. And a good one can become a long-term strategic asset. - What's missed in this list? - What is the MOST underrated factor when evaluating a petrol station to lease? Repost 🔁 if you find this insightful.

We were spending money on Apartments.com Gold across several properties with elevated vacancy. The platform was generating leads. The metrics looked decent on paper—inquiries were coming in, contact forms were being submitted, prospects were expressing interest. But when we tracked those leads all the way through to applications, we found something that changed our entire marketing allocation strategy. Zero applications. Not low conversion. Not occasional success. Zero. Apartments . com Gold was producing inquiry volume that made our lead generation numbers look healthy. But none of those leads were converting to actual applications. We were paying for activity that created work for our leasing teams without producing any revenue. Meanwhile, we were underspending on Zillow. When we analyzed the leads that actually converted to scheduled tours and applications, they were coming disproportionately from Zillow, even though we were on their basic package instead of their premium tier. This is the difference between measuring activity and measuring outcomes. Lead volume is an activity metric. It tells you that your marketing is generating awareness and contact. But it doesn't tell you whether that awareness converts to actual leasing revenue. We shifted our marketing spend. Dropped Apartments . com Gold. Upgraded our Zillow packages to Enhanced and Premium on properties where we needed conversion support. The total marketing budget stayed roughly the same. But now those dollars are allocated to the platform that actually produces tours and applications, not just inquiry forms. The lesson here isn't that Apartments . com is bad or that Zillow is universally better. The lesson is that platform performance varies by property, market, and demographic. What works in one market might burn cash in another. The only way to know is to track conversion by source, not just lead volume. For our investors, this platform performance tracking reallocates marketing spend to channels that actually convert, eliminating waste on vanity metrics like inquiry volume that don't translate to occupancy or revenue. Our newsletter documents our marketing efficiency work: which platforms we test, how we measure actual conversion versus activity, and whether data-driven allocation actually reduces waste or just shifts it around. Subscribe to see capital efficiency across our portfolio operations.

If I were building a short-term rental operation from scratch today, I'd run it like an AI-first tech company. Here's every tool I'd use: 90% of STR operations is just moving information and tickets across humans. If you have a flexible way to access the data and a way to move tickets across the org, AI can do most of the work. Knowledge base: Notion Flexible hierarchy - Organise info for teams, regions, listings, HOAs, etc., however you like. Lots of endpoints for an agent to work with. Internal comms: Slack Great for mobile teams, integrates with everything. Very AI-friendly. Agents can access all past comms easily. External comms: Conduit AI AI-first unified inbox purpose-built for hospitality. Bring every channel and stakeholder into one hub. Let AI handle everything it knows. PMS: Any that integrates with Conduit OTA distribution, accounting, booking engine, listing management + more. Dynamic pricing: Wheelhouse Lots of APIs, most agent-friendly. Cleaner / task management: Linear + Tembo Linear for issue tracking and project organization. A Linear ticket can flex for anything, making it a great vehicle to shuttle data between LLMs and humans. Tembo runs background agents to triage and assign Linear tickets automatically. CRM: Attio Modern, flexible, actually pleasant to use. Use it for the homeowner acquisition funnel. Always be closing. Booking site: Vercel + Sanity For under $100 a month, have a direct booking site that looks nicer than Amangiri's. Direct booking rankings: Searchable Figure out what your guests are searching on Google, then automate writing blogs about that stuff so ChatGPT and Claude recommend your direct booking site before Airbnb. Payroll: Warp Payroll and compliance on autopilot. They handle all the compliance, the UI is nice, and it has an MCP. Automation & reporting: Claude Every tool in this stack has an API or MCP. Connect everything you do manually to Claude. There are really only two types of work in the world: recurring scheduled work, and ad hoc work. Recurring work should be a combination of workflows and recurring skills Claude runs. Ad hoc work gets triaged by an agent, handled by an agent, and only when stuck does it escalate to a human - in Slack or Conduit. Every night your agent looks at Slack/Conduit, sees what happened that day, recognizes patterns, and updates your memory file. And reporting. Nobody actually understands the BI tooling report your board mandates. Have Claude organize the data in a way that makes sense to you and get a true pulse on the business. Closed wall vertical-specific tooling < flexible AI-friendly tooling. What would you add / change?

This is the new rule for Saudi real estate developers. Be ready fast, or be overlooked. The reason why I’m saying so is that companies are walking away from prime office space because it can't be ready in 30 days. Five years ago, that wouldn't have happened. Tenants signed 10-year leases for empty floors and spent six months on fit-outs. Today, they want plug-and-play. Fit-out done. Internet running. Furniture in place. Move in next week. The shift isn't subtle. Tenants are treating office space like a service, not a long-term asset decision. They want flexibility to scale up or down quickly and they're ready to pay premiums for turnkey solutions that eliminate the headache of coordinating architects, contractors, and IT vendors themselves. Riyadh's office market hit 98% occupancy with rents up 15% year-over-year. Demand is strong. But that demand is increasingly flowing to landlords who understand they're competing on speed and convenience, not just location and price per square meter. Raw shell-and-core space made sense when tenants had time and capital to customize everything. That market still exists for large corporate headquarters wanting brand-specific environments. But for the majority of tenants, especially companies setting up regional offices or expanding quickly, turnkey wins every time. Developers need to start thinking like service providers. That means carrying fit-out costs upfront. Managing vendor relationships for furniture, technology, and design. Offering flexible lease terms that don't lock tenants into rigid commitments they're increasingly unwilling to make. The economics shift when you operate this way. Higher upfront investment. More operational complexity. But faster lease-ups, higher retention, and rental premiums that justify the additional cost if structured correctly. If landlords are still leasing empty floors and expecting tenants to handle everything themselves, they're competing in yesterday's market. The tenants moving fastest are choosing providers who removed obstacles, not the ones offering the cheapest base rent. Plug-and-play is the new standard for commercial leasing.

The Top 5 Tools for Vacation Rental Owners to Simplify Operations Owning a vacation rental is rewarding but can be challenging. Managing bookings, guest experiences, and routine tasks while trying to maintain a life outside of work? It’s a lot. But here’s the good news: The right tools can make your life easier and your rental more profitable. Here are my top 5 picks for platforms that simplify operations: 1️⃣ Airbnb + Vrbo Sync Sync your calendars and bookings across platforms effortlessly. Tools like iGMS or Your Porter App can prevent double bookings and save hours of manual updates. 2️⃣ Dynamic Pricing Software Maximize your revenue by using tools like Pricelabs or Wheelhouse. These platforms adjust your rates based on demand, competition, and seasonality. 3️⃣ Guest Messaging Automation Keep communication seamless with tools like Hospitable. From check-in instructions to thank-you messages, these platforms handle it all. 4️⃣ Smart Home Tech Invest in smart locks (like August) and thermostats (like Nest). These devices not only save you time but also elevate your guest experience. 5️⃣ Cleaning and Maintenance Management Apps like TurnoverBnB let you schedule and monitor cleaning tasks with your team, ensuring every turnover is spotless. The best part? Many of these tools integrate with each other, creating a streamlined ecosystem for your vacation rental. Which tool do you swear by for managing your rental? Or, if you’re just starting, which one would you try first? P.S. Found this helpful? Don’t forget to share it with fellow vacation rental owners. ♻️

I help asset manage 1,450+ Multifamily units. Here are 6 observations from 2024: 𝟭. 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗻-𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗳𝗳 = 𝗚𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗿. If you want to find a rock star for the on-site team, look for these 4 qualities: • Strong sales skills • Personable + positive • Familiarity with residents • Responsive + professional 𝟮. 𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲, 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀. Softening rents in higher supply markets have required a proactive response. Being the first-mover amid the comp set to lower rents is a calculated risk that can be rewarded with more leases, higher occupancy, and a sustained NOI. (Conversely, not being willing to adjust rents quickly can have the opposite effect). 𝟯. 𝗠𝗶𝗰𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗖𝗮𝗽𝗘𝘅 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘀. It's difficult to get contractors to do what they said they would do, in the time frame they said they'd do it, and for the price they agreed to do it. Staying updated on project progress is super important. 𝟰. 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗺𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗯𝗲 𝘁𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗱𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆. Getting a look and feel for the property is the best way to make positive improvements. Ensuring that trash, junk cars, damaged roofs or siding, pool cracking, misplaced or damaged furniture, etc get remedied quickly elevates the resident experience and improves renewals + reviews. 𝟱. 𝗛𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿𝗳𝘂𝗹. Many markets have leasing seasonality, and getting out ahead of trends like those is key. Considering things like same-period leasing traffic YoY, NTV reasoning, lease renewal offers based on LTL/GTL, marketing costs per lead, and other variables help us make better real-time decisions. 𝟲. 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝗾𝘂𝗶𝗰𝗸𝗹𝘆 & 𝗵𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗹𝘆. Nobody likes getting bad news, and delivering it more slowly makes it worse. Providing timely updates on capital needs, incident reports, major CapEx project delays, lender negotiations, etc helps solve problems faster, and it's a powerful way to maintain (and even build) trust with existing investors. What else would you add to this list? P.S. I am rebranding my weekly newsletter in 2025 to focus on Multifamily investing topics. You can join (for free) in the comments below. - - - Follow Trey Wheeler for daily Multifamily content.

Introducing 'My Tech Stack' - a fresh new series where we dive into the world of short-term vacation rental leaders and their tech stack essentials. Why? Because the right tools can transform businesses, enhancing efficiency and productivity in this rapidly evolving landscape. Today, we turn the spotlight on Heather M Brown, the co-founder & CEO StayLuxe Properties. Let’s dive in! 1️⃣ What are your core software tools you use to power your business? Lightmaker Property Manager (LMPM.com) is my PMS (that also offers a customizable direct booking website). I have used 3 different management software products before settling on LMPM. The reason for my choice was: accounting and the size of the company. The accounting aspect is key, considering that I am hoping to make a living doing this and because I have used trust accounting since day 1. The size of the company aspect has recently changed, but for now, I still feel “seen” by their team.   Beyond + Guidance is a game-changer. My company is intentionally small and as such, cannot afford to hire a full-time revenue manager. Key Data Breezeway Know Your Guest (Superhog) Brivo (digital locks and thermostats) G Suite (emails, mail merges, calendars, and document management) Microsoft Suite (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) Calendly Linktree Rankbreeze ChatGPT Canva 2️⃣ What's the latest game-changing product you’ve added in the last year? Adding the additional Breezeway messaging and digital guidebooks has elevated our guest experience, while adding Rankbreeze to our tech stack has allowed us to better navigate a correcting marketplace by helping us see how our listings compare to others. 3️⃣ We all have that one software product we can't imagine parting ways with. What’s the essential tool you’d never let go of? I'm going to go a little off the path on this answer and say that I could not part ways with any of my Apple/IOS tools (MacBook, iPad, iPhone, and Apple Watch). I mean, I can access every single one of the software products that I have mentioned from at least one of these devices from pretty much anywhere. Part of the reason I started my own business was for the freedom to go and do wherever, whatever, and whenever. The Apple suite allows be to enjoy that lifestyle.  4️⃣ Discover hidden treasures! What’s your under-the-radar product that's been a game-changer for you that maybe others may haven’t heard of before. BoxBrownie.com! I wear so many other hats and my favorite, by far, is creative director. I stage/style, photograph, and write copy for all the homes in our portfolio. We all know that without beautiful, quality listing photos, we can’t make it in this industry. So…for anyone who has basic photography training, BoxBrownie offers an app called Snap Snap Snap that allows you to take bracketed photos on your iPhone and then send them for post-editing, where you can add gorgeous skies, change photos from day to dusk, add grass to spotty lawns, remove small items, etc. 

3 things I often see dragging occupancy. Hint...It's not the Leasing Agent. When occupancy drops, most people look straight at the Leasing Agent. Following up on leads and giving great tours is crucial. But when these 3 things are out of whack, there's nothing a Leasing Agent can do to overcome it: 1. 𝐃𝐫𝐨𝐩 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜 ↳ If your ILS isn’t integrated or your rents are much higher than the comps, prospects move on—fast. Leasing Agents can market, but they aren’t the main driver of traffic. 2. 𝐑𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐬 ↳ Everyone starts their search online now. If your property is $100+ more than similar options, prospects aren't going to investigate why...they’ll just keep scrolling. 3. 𝐔𝐧𝐢𝐭 𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐥𝐨𝐰 ↳ If an apartment isn’t ready, Leasing Agents have to guess ready dates and often push the move-in date out. When units are ready, you can push for faster move-ins and higher occupancy. Here's how this can play out: A 200-unit property, 40% annual turnover, starting at 95% occupancy (190 units), with in-place rents averaging $1,429. 𝐒𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐨 1: 𝐀𝐥𝐥 𝐀𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐞𝐝 • Units turn in 7 days, lease in 10 days (17 days vacant per turn) • 95% occupancy (190 units) • Annual revenue: $3,420,000 𝐒𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐨 2: 𝐒𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐓𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐬 • Turn time increases to 20 days (30 days vacant per turn) • Occupancy drops to 89% (178 units) • Annual revenue: $3,204,000 • Loss: $216,000 𝐒𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐨 3: 𝐇𝐢𝐠𝐡 𝐑𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬, 𝐋𝐨𝐰 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜 • Rents pushed to $1,600, traffic drops 50% • Only 40% of units lease at $1,600 • 89% occupancy (178 units) • Annual revenue: $3,215,064 • Loss: $204,936 𝐒𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐨 4: 𝐒𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐓𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐬 + 𝐇𝐢𝐠𝐡 𝐑𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 + 𝐋𝐨𝐰 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜 • Turn time 20 days, rents $1,600, traffic down 50% • Only 40% of units lease at $1,600, rest at $1,429 • 85% occupancy (170 units) • Annual revenue: $3,054,216 • Loss: $365,784 When marketing, pricing, and product are aligned, you can get away with an "ok" Leasing Agent in most cases. If all fall out of alignment....A "Rockstar" can't save you. 𝐌𝐲 𝐚𝐝𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐞? Before you look for the "right" people who will drive revenue, make sure your revenue machine isn't broken.