Why Optimizing Your Marketing Now is Key to Surviving the New Unit Boom

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: “Hot real estate markets create lazy/bad marketers.”

When a product sells itself, no matter what your community looks like or how your marketing stands out, it’s easy to get complacent with staying on top of marketing and refining your brand.

Why invest the marketing dollars if you can just sit back and watch your leads convert like crazy?

For starters, there’s a supply boom coming with an unprecedented number of new unit growth.

We’re also seeing demand cool as supply picks up.

It’s going to get more difficult to stand out in the multifamily market, especially if you’re not expanding or renovating your own units.

Here’s what the supply boom means for multifamily marketing and how to plan.

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Don’t Count on Marketing Your Community Based on Pricing Alone

If you’re not planning to expand or renovate, don’t count on marketing your community around being the cheapest.

What if massive multifamily buildings go up in your neighborhood, city, or surrounding metro areas?

Can you beat out their rent specials?

Larger multifamily properties are going to have more flexibility to drop their pricing, especially when they open their doors for the first time.

Pricing alone won’t make your community stand out.

The goal is to position and market your community with such precision and efficiency that residents truly understand the value of choosing your property.

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Why You Should Think Like an E-Commerce Entrepreneur

You can draw parallels between e-commerce and real estate and how they're different.

In the e-commerce industry, whether it's a good economy or a recession, no one is buying anything from you unless you can market yourself effectively and profitably.

E-commerce is all about “market well or die.”

This is NOT true for real estate.

A supply-constrained market could lease up your community to full occupancy, regardless of your marketing skills.

Communities also see boosts from drive-by and walk-in traffic.

E-commerce sites don't, forcing them to market continuously, efficiently, and proactively, no matter the season.

Start Marketing Your Community Before the Supply Boom

With a multifamily supply boom around the corner, it's never been more important to market yourself well.

Positioning is a massive part of the process.

Let's look at some of the multifamily data.

👉 Over 1 million new units have been delivered across the top U.S. markets since 2020, increasing the multifamily supply by almost 15%.

👉 Effective rents among class A assets have declined by -0.7%, compared to +0.1% for class B and +1.9% for class C.

👉 New apartment construction is on track to top a 50-year high, with nearly 461,000 units expected to be built across the U.S. this year.

👉 To meet demand, the U.S. needs 4.3 million more apartments by 2035.

Here’s a look at the projections from last year:

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With so many multifamily communities and new units entering the market, it’s crucial to look for ways to grow your lead base while establishing a rock-solid brand.

Let’s face it.

Standing out in a potentially oversaturated rental market isn’t for the faint of heart.

It requires some real grit and determination to keep going.

But the earlier you start, the easier it is to refine your processes and look for ways to optimize and grow your marketing budget.

How to Market Your Community in a New Unit Boom

When you’re up against new units and fancy new buildings, it’s time to focus on aspects of your community that can’t easily be replicated.

Sure, do what you can, including giving your amenities and the aesthetics of your property a refresh.

If you can’t differentiate yourself by pricing and amenities, it’s important to tap into the unique strategies specific to your community, from hyper-responsive support staff to resident friendships.

Here are some resources to get started:

✅ Why Resident Friendships Are the Single Most Valuable Retention Strategy

✅ How Well-Being Trends Can Impact Your Multifamily Marketing

✅ How to Use On-Demand Maintenance Support as a Marketing Tool

✅ Why Maintenance is the Secret to a 5-Star Reputation

The question isn’t so much how you're going to market your community, but how consistently you’re going to do it instead of waiting for the housing boom to unseat your status as the community with a nearly 100% vacancy rate.

Grow Your Resident Retention Strategy

Beyond how to market and position your community, it’s vital to master your resident retention strategy.

It’s more cost-effective to keep the residents you already have than to start from scratch, especially during a multifamily boom.

How cost-effective is it?

The average turnover cost for a unit ranges from $1,000 to $5,000.

That figure only increases in expensive rental markets.

Waiting until the month before leases end isn’t the time to pull out the stops on resident retention.

Tip 💡: Your resident retention strategy is something to start executing the day your residents move into your community.

Make your community a place people consider their long-term home, not a place to come and go based on the cheapest prices, best amenities, and changing market conditions.

A few places to start include:

Make it easy for residents to get the actionable answers they need on everything from submitting a maintenance request to what day garbage goes out.
Develop a culture of hyper-responsive management that prioritizes maintenance, responding to reviews, problem solving, and everything else that falls under their job description.
Offer multiple ways to pay rent, including online
Wave the renewal fee
Make it easy for residents to befriend each other through ongoing community activities

Above all else, it’s time to be proactive with your marketing and retention strategy.

Sitting back and enjoying high-converting leads and a high occupancy rate will eventually slow down and possibly come to a standstill.

Make it your mission to beat out the new unit boom by maximizing your marketing and positioning until there’s nothing left to squeeze out of it.