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That's really neat. Fun fact - many apartments run by management companies / owned by institutional investors dynamically price their units on a daily basis ba

That's really neat. Fun fact - many apartments run by management companies / owned by institutional investors dynamically price their units on a daily basis based on the number of phone inquiries, walk ins to the leasing office, occupancy rates in the neighborhood, and many other factors. Ex: http://www.realpage.com/yieldstar/ http://www.realpage.com/yieldstar/

gyardley 11y ago
Yes, and scraping their publicly-posted apartment rents daily for a couple months can reveal patterns that'll save you a decent chunk of your lease. Biggest determinant is supply of a particular unit size, though. If there's five one-bedrooms available in a yield-managed complex, you're getting a better deal relative to the building than if there's only one one-bedroom remaining - sometimes to the tune of hundreds of dollars a month.
- dave5104 11y ago
  A few other products out there apart from YieldStar include LRO and Rent Maximizer. It's fascinating how much goes into the pricing. It's all based on quite a few variables, ranging from availability (like you mention), competing communities in the area, lease end date optimizations (I don't want >X leases expiring in one month, since that's a lot of work for my leasing staff), time of year, and price history. And on top of this, prices can change daily. I've had the chance to work on a revenue management product myself--and I can safely say that it's changed my perspective as a renter. There's a lot that can go into the pricing.
  - Nicholas_C 11y ago
    My roommate swears that checking the posting a few times can raise the price. Is the number of clicks/views on a posting taken into account when prices are changed daily?
    - dave5104 11y ago
      No systems I've seen use that specific data point. Sadly for communities (and probably good for prospective renters), the third party sites you might find listings on (Craigslist, Apartments.com, ForRent.com, etc.) don't share that data that I've ever seen. However, demand, which is usually a variable in the pricing equations, will definitely be generated by the lead tracking the community does, which can include: # of incoming phone calls, # of walk-ins, # of incoming emails. tl;dr: Clicking on the ads won't do anything. Taking action and reaching out to the community can do something. And a lead is usually tracked on a unique user basis--so one person calling 50 times vs. 50 people calling once is vastly different.
- vorg 11y ago
  > sometimes to the tune of hundreds of dollars a month I spent a while trying to work out whether these prices were weekly or monthly. The only clue is a single reference in the article: > 500+ more dollars per month for the exact same apartment anywhere in North Seattle So I'm guessing these are all monthly figures.

gyardley 11y ago

Yes, and scraping their publicly-posted apartment rents daily for a couple months can reveal patterns that'll save you a decent chunk of your lease. Biggest determinant is supply of a particular unit size, though. If there's five one-bedrooms available in a yield-managed complex, you're getting a better deal relative to the building than if there's only one one-bedroom remaining - sometimes to the tune of hundreds of dollars a month.

dave5104 11y ago
A few other products out there apart from YieldStar include LRO and Rent Maximizer. It's fascinating how much goes into the pricing. It's all based on quite a few variables, ranging from availability (like you mention), competing communities in the area, lease end date optimizations (I don't want >X leases expiring in one month, since that's a lot of work for my leasing staff), time of year, and price history. And on top of this, prices can change daily. I've had the chance to work on a revenue management product myself--and I can safely say that it's changed my perspective as a renter. There's a lot that can go into the pricing.
- Nicholas_C 11y ago
  My roommate swears that checking the posting a few times can raise the price. Is the number of clicks/views on a posting taken into account when prices are changed daily?
  - dave5104 11y ago
    No systems I've seen use that specific data point. Sadly for communities (and probably good for prospective renters), the third party sites you might find listings on (Craigslist, Apartments.com, ForRent.com, etc.) don't share that data that I've ever seen. However, demand, which is usually a variable in the pricing equations, will definitely be generated by the lead tracking the community does, which can include: # of incoming phone calls, # of walk-ins, # of incoming emails. tl;dr: Clicking on the ads won't do anything. Taking action and reaching out to the community can do something. And a lead is usually tracked on a unique user basis--so one person calling 50 times vs. 50 people calling once is vastly different.
vorg 11y ago
> sometimes to the tune of hundreds of dollars a month I spent a while trying to work out whether these prices were weekly or monthly. The only clue is a single reference in the article: > 500+ more dollars per month for the exact same apartment anywhere in North Seattle So I'm guessing these are all monthly figures.