Login to your Locator IDX and navigate to Online Leads. Use the search filters to find the specific properties you want to add to your data feed. You can search by geographic location, price point, commission rate, and more. Your data feed is published and your listings are now searchable on each rental website in the network.
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Through our apartments.com account, we can publish apartment listings to their network. Each locator uses our apartment MLS to create a data feed with their desired properties. The data feed is updated daily and includes the property details, floor plans, pricing, and images. Updating the listings automatically each morning is the best way to keep your listings on top of your competition.
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The name of the apartment isn’t listed, but the address is required. The listing includes your company, first & last name, phone number, website, and license number. Rental Advisors isn’t included anywhere on the listing. It follows all advertising rules for real estate agents and it includes disclaimers for broken leases, evictions, felonies, and section 8 housing.
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Your phone number is published and you will receive incoming calls. These leads are free since we have no way of tracking them. When the renter clicks “message” they must fill out a lead capture form. There is no suggestion they are calling the property but the truth is sometimes they make assumptions. If you receive a phone call and the person on the other end thinks they have called the leasing office, explain the miscommunication and that the ad is part of your marketing. It’s a simple misunderstanding, keep converting.
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The phone number is not required on the lead capture form and unfortunately we cannot control apartments.com or the fields they require. If an incoming lead does not have a phone number, we delete it and don’t forward it. This provides higher quality leads because each lead has a phone number and email address but lower lead volume. If you want to receive leads that don’t have a phone number and use your CRM to attempt to convert them via email, we will give you those leads at half price.
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When you receive a new lead, an email notification is sent to your inbox with valuable information. To generate as many ads as possible, we publish ads based on affordability not locating commission. You will get leads for no locator properties, but the goal is to help the renter not the property. If the initial inquiry is about a no locator property, the probability they sign a lease at that property is less than 1%. The name of the apartment is not on the ad, the availability for their move date is slim, and you’re going to provide an apartment list with 10+ other options. Any time a client asks about a property you don’t want to refer to you will need to overcome the objection in the sales pitch.
FAQ & Important Instructions
- Texas is the most competitive and expensive market to generate online rental leads because Google controls the cost per lead.
- Generating leads is a formula of total number of apartments, occupancy rates, new construction, job growth, and number of locators in each market. To generate the most leads for each locator we look for as many properties as possible in desirable areas with a rent rate most people can afford. If the average person makes $45,000 a year, that’s roughly $3,500 a month. To qualify for an apartment they must make 3 times the rent so most people can afford $1,100 or less. Therefore, we publish ads for locator friendly and no locator properties because there is a limited supply of $1,100 – $1,200 one bedroom apartments. The fewer properties in your data feed, the fewer leads will be generated.
- Each locator chooses their own apartment mix one by one from the Apartment MLS. If you only want leads for luxury apartments you can select only those properties, but know your lead volume will be very low because every locator and real estate agent in your area is also advertising high-end properties.
- The online ad does not include Rental Advisors or our contact information. It clearly shows your information in the ad and in the description section. Despite our best effort, people don’t always read the entire ad (especially on mobile) so sometimes they think they have called the apartment community. On mobile they can “click to call” so it’s reasonable they assume they are calling the property. This is not a mistake or deception, just a misunderstanding. Be prepared and keep converting.
- For the most part every lead tracks back to an exact ad but one locator in Houston gets calls for a high rise that is not in his data feed and the property is now condos. We have no idea how this happens but sometimes you will need to be creative to convert. The Houston locator addresses it head on and tells them he doesn’t know why he gets the calls, but he understands what they are looking for and he can help. Being honest helps him convert and close.
- The prices are updated daily and each property in the data feed advertises every floor plan type available. If the property offers studio, 1-bedroom, 2-bedroom, and 3-bedroom apartments, all 4 floor plans will be published on the ad. Sometimes a renter is looking for a 2-bedroom, but they respond to a 1-bedroom ad. We have no idea why this happens but move past it quickly and tell them you can help find a 2-bedroom. Keep converting.
- We don’t know why some ads get many leads and some get zero. The system can change at any time so a property that never got leads, all the sudden gets leads. Treat every lead as an opportunity.