Your team members are your most valuable – and most expensive – resource. To maximize Leasing Labor Efficiency you need capable, motivated people focused on the highest value work. This means removing or automating time-consuming activities, and having the right people to execute on the remaining activities that matter most.

Let’s dig in.

Focus On the Team

Whether it’s leasing labor or any other labor, you need to recruit, hire, on-board and retain high-performance team members. Find people that fit your culture and the work that needs to be done. Set clear, attainable goals. Solicit feedback and give them the tools and attention needed to succeed. Evaluate and provide feedback regularly. Reward strong performance. Consistently address underperformance.

There's been so many books written on this topic by others with more experience than us. So we'll leave at that.

Automate an Actionable Response to Every Inquiry

When a prospective renter calls, emails, or texts, they’re in a state of action. Harness that momentum with an instantaneous answer. 

This can be as simple as an automated response that allows the prospect to complete the next steps in your leasing funnel. Even an email auto-reply and a voicemail greeting with an easy-to-type web address will do. 

Point prospects to a web form to schedule a showing. If you can't do that, add a form that requests enough detail to engage the prospect and move the process forward. At the very least, ask for times that work for the prospect -- and include questions on the specifics your team needs, such as pets, move in date, and income.

Put the Prospective Renter in the Online Driver’s Seat

Reduce the low value interactions between prospects and your team. Whether it’s scheduling a showing online, uploading documents for an application, paying security deposit, or a surprising number of other activities — today’s prospective renters are often happier completing it their own. 

Find and implement online tools that let your prospects self-serve their way through the leasing journey. There's a large number of tools available. Some are specific to property management. But others may be general purpose tools that can deliver the specific bit of needed automation.

Minimize Real World Drive Times

Especially for single family property managers, drive times can be an efficiency slayer. This can be solved any number of ways. Current solutions include:

• Self-showings.
• Online virtual tours.
• Occupant-conducted showings.
• Key checkout.

But, don’t count our the old-fashioned in-person showing. In-person showing efficiencies can be improved by combining rigorous pre-showing confirmations with smarter scheduling (group tours or clustered showtimes).

Implement a System of Proactive Best Practices

Fire drills and rework sap labor efficiency. Implement proactive processes to guard against this. 

Manually or automatically review listing performance metrics to identify marketing and other issues early (not at 60 days off market when the owner is calling). Use an email marketing tool to quickly blast out on-market notifications and rent reductions. 

Write and require checklists for any critical activity from making a unit market ready to leasing signing.

Watch Your Other Metrics

As you tweak, adjust, and improve, keep an eye on the important leasing metrics that matter to your business. These include:

• Average market times.
• Prospective renter feedback scores.
• Owner feedback scores.
• Team member job satisfaction.
• Overall marketing spend. 

These metrics should remain constant or even improve. If they start shifting in the wrong direction, then you might be over-optimizing for leasing labor efficiency.