- The document discusses the results of a survey on renewal policies and practices in the multi-family housing industry. - Key findings include that renewals are typically sent 1-2 months in advance, responses come in the same month, and renewal rates reported vary dramatically but are often 65% or higher. Nearly half of respondents use automated pricing systems. - The majority of renewal pricing decisions are made by community or regional managers, and significant time is spent on renewal processes like creating, delivering, and following up on offers. Most companies offer time-based incentives and engage in some negotiation on renewals.

1. Renewal
Policies&Practices
by Donald Davidoff
Jan 4, 2016
How Do Yours Stack Up?

2. Introduction
The multi-family industry spends a tremendous amount of time and money to acquire new
residents, yet typically 50-60% (or more) of a rent roll consists of residents on renewal leases
(i.e. not their first lease at that community). Despite representing more than half of the revenue
of almost all communities, renewal practices are not nearly as transparent as marketing and
other new lease activities. Thus the need for deep research into renewal policies and practices
to help operators determine how their approach stacks up against industry norms.
Methodology
During October 2015, we used an online survey to determine various policies and practices with
respect to how multi-family housing implements renewals. The survey was promoted via On-Site.
com, a variety of social media channels, and through D2 Demand Solutions’ blog. This resulted in
348 responses which were then analyzed for this report.
( 2 )

3. ( 3 )
Executive Summary
Highlights of the study include (details follow in the “Analysis” section):
• Renewals are essentially evenly split between being sent 1-2 months ahead of expiration (49.7%)
and more than 2 months in advance (47.7%). Very few are sent earlier than that (3.2%)
• Responses typically come in the same month (55.6%)
• Renewal rates vary dramatically with more than half reporting 65% or higher renewal rates
and two-thirds of respondents claiming renewal rates 55% or higher1
. Fewer than 10% of
respondents report renewal rates below 33%
• 45% of respondents use an automated pricing system2
although 23% of that group does not
use their automated pricing system for pricing renewals
• The least use of automated pricing is with portfolios less than 10,000 units and the most
with portfolios 20,000 to 30,000 units
• Market share among respondents is roughly equal between LRO and Yieldstar followed by
Rent Maximizer then company proprietary systems and Entrata Pricing.
• 67.2% use online leasing although 37.6% of those use online leasing for new only (i.e. not renewals).
78.3% of those using online leasing use On-Site3
followed by Entrata, Yardi and AppFolio
• 60.1% of renewal pricing decisions are made by community and/or regional managers with
9.6% by a central pricing team and another 9.6% by assistant community managers.
• Significant time is spent on renewal processes
- More than half of respondents report spending 60 minutes or more per month creating
renewal offers with 19% reporting 120 minutes or more
- More than half of respondents report spending 60 minutes or more per month delivering
renewal offers with 15% reporting 120 minutes or more
- More than half of respondents report spending 120 minutes or more per month following up
and discussing renewal offers with residents with 20% reporting 240 minutes (4 hours) or
more and 4% reporting 20 hours or more
• The majority of respondents offer some form of time-based incentive on renewals with 14.5%
saying they do so frequently and 40.0% doing so sometimes
• The majority of respondents engage in some form of negotiation on renewals with only
6.4% saying they do so frequently and 57.2% doing so sometimes
- Of those, 69% say only 1-20% of renewal offers end up with negotiations and 18% saying
21-40%
- 44.8% of the time, negotiation is based on the amount of increase and/or closeness of
expiring rents to the market; 20.9% are based on the quality of the resident (e.g. lack of
late payments, tenure, etc.) followed by 17.8% based on vacancy/exposure
and 7.4% on expiration management
• Despite the majority of communities doing some form of negotiation, only 27% report
getting any formal training on negotiation techniques
1
Editor’s note: Self-reported renewal numbers are typically higher than actual so that should be taken into account when interpreting these
results. 2
This rate varies dramatically by size of portfolio. See Analysis section for details. 3
This rate may be high due to sample bias as the com-
munication method for getting the survey out involved more On-Site customers than other users.

4. Analysis
The majority of offers are sent at least a month in advance of
expiration, almost evenly split between 1-2 months in advance
and more than 3 months. This is slightly more balanced than
a recent survey report from Multi-family Insiders4
which showed
54% of offers sent more than 2 months ahead of expiration and
40% sent 1-2 months ahead.
Most residents respond the same month that they receive a renewal
offer. With the exception of a small number of same day responses,
the rest of the responses are split fairly equally between faster than
that (same week) and slower (one month or more).
The range of residents renewing is quite large with a plurality at 50%
and a clear skewing towards the 65-80% range. As noted in the
Executive Summary, self-reported statistics like this can often skew
higher than reality as associates may have a gilded view of their own
performance. Prior research from Satisfacts and proprietary work
at one of the author’s former places of employment has tended to
indicate that typically 20-35% of residents will renew no matter what
(due to hassles of moving, etc.) while another 20-35% will not renew
no matter what (due to life changes, etc.), so these self-reported
results are a bit better than that prior research.
4
Multi-family Insiders conducted a renewal survey in September 2015 that receive 229 responses.
( 4 )
Renewals Sent Ahead
of Expiration
Greater
Than 2
Months
48%
1-2
Months
49%
Less Than
1 Month
3%
Time for Resident
Response
Same
Month
56% Same Week
20%
A Month or
More 23%
Same Day
1%
% Renewing
5
0.6%
10
0.9%
15
0%
20
1.8%
25
1.2%
30
4.8%
35
1.8%
40
5.4%
45
1.5%
50
14.1%
55
5.1%
60
10.5%
65
6.3%
70
9.3%
75
9%
80
10.8%
85
4.5%
90
6.3%
95
3%
100
3%

5. Slightly more than half of the industry5
is still not using
automated pricing. However, when you consider that only
about 70% of the industry is likely to end up adopting any
specific technology, this suggests that we’re almost two-
thirds through the initial “race for market share.” Yieldstar
and LRO clearly have the lion’s share of the market with
Rent Maximizer a distant third.
The vast majority of respondents use online leasing with
a strong majority of them using the On-Site platform.
These results are almost certainly skewed higher than a
random sampling of the industry given that the survey was
promoted through On-Site’s media; however, clearly online
leasing is no longer the purview of just the larger companies.
With Property Management Software vendors and third
parties like On-Site offering multiple alternatives for online
leasing, any property manager who wants to can offer
that service to prospects and residents.
5
By “industry,” we refer to the roughly 10 million “professionally managed”
multi-family housing units in the United States.
( 5 )
Student housing faces complexities not
encountered by market-rate multi-family
housing companies. With “by the bed
leasing” and a very tech-savvy resident
base, it’s not surprising that student
housing companies are on the forefront
of the transition to online renewal
processing and leasing. As part of our
study, we spoke with two operators who
have recently made the transition.
Jennifer Stanton, Director of Marketing
for Birmingham Alabama-based Capstone
Real Estate Investments and Dawn
Duckhorn, Property Support Manager
for Memphis-based EDR shared their
thoughts and experiences with us. Both
have moved to online renewal processing
and lease execution in the past year.
Q: How does your current process
compare to the past?
JS: Our previous process involved placing
flyers on doors, emailing residents and
their guarantors, as well as calling, and
mailing notices to home addresses. Now
we have a “one stop” shop to create and
transmit letters electronically. While we
still use some of the other tactics, we’ve
found that students have embraced the
electronic process and are much quicker
to respond.
DD: Once we’re done with August
move-ins, we start offering renewals
for the next year. Using On-Site’s bulk
renewal pricing, we can price and create
and send the renewal letter in minutes.
Before, we had to create and manage
Excel files, run mail merges, and then
send through email, flyers and letters.
(Continued on next page.)
No
Automated
Pricing
55%
New and
Renewal
35%
New
Only
10%
YieldStar
42%
LRO
39%
RentMaxi
14%
Entrata
Pricing
2%
Company
Proprietary
3%
Use of Online Leasing
Use of Automated Pricing
AppFolio
2%
New and
Renewal
49%
New
Only
18%
No Online
Leasing
33%
Yardi
8%
On-Site
78%
Entrata
12%

6. A significant majority of companies have renewal pricing
set by the Community Manager and/or Regional Property
Manager. Close to 10% allow Assistant Community Mangers
to set renewal rates while an equal number put their central
pricing management team in charge of renewal pricing.
Given that 35% of all respondents said they use their
automated pricing system for renewal rents as well as
new rents, the reality is that many of the prices “set”
by community or regional managers are probably first
calculated by the pricing system and then reviewed
and/or modified by them.
While a minority of respondents have systems that allow
them to spend very little time on the mechanics of renewals,
the reality is that too much time is spent on activities that
are mechanical in nature. With pricing systems and online
leasing systems, the opportunity exists to spend virtually
no time on creating and delivering renewal offers freeing
that time up for higher value customer service activities
—and following up and discussing renewal offers when
needed.
( 6 )
Q: What were the key benefits?
JS: The upfront time savings and added
efficiency are key benefits. Reaching
everyone at the same time is critical
especially when our first tier of renewal
offers is limited to say 1 5 people. Some
of our properties are 500 or more beds.
Because everyone is notified using the bulk
function, there are no unfair advantages.
The reporting dashboard makes follow
up easy saving us hours we can use to
focus on events and service instead of
administrative duties.
DD: We saved at least one week (40
man hours) per property in the initial
administrative work to send the offers.
When we include follow up with residents
regarding their renewal, it’s probably
double that.
Q: What other benefits did you see?
JS: There were several. We now offer a
1-page online renewal rather than requiring
a physical signature on a new multiple-page
lease. We can continue to work leases over
the 4- to 6-week winter break periods at
many of our schools whereas we used to
be limited by our inability to physically
meet with students and collect signatures.
We’ve also found that the online dashboard
has saved us time in tracking. At the
corporate level, we’re able to see a live
view of what’s going on and can monitor
that and work with the team a lot easier
than manual systems.
DD: Now there’s a lot less room for human
error. Also, we save time and hassle for
ourselves and our residents since they
can still review and execute renewals
after hours.
(Continued on next page.)
Renewal Pricing Authority
Comm/Reg
Manager
Asst. Comm/
Manager
Pricing
& RM
Corporate Owner Other
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%

7. Almost half of respondents say they never use time-based incentives
to encourage renewals while 40% use them sometimes. Only 14% use
them frequently. This could be an interesting area for future research
—i.e. running a controlled test on incentives to see if the gains from
offering them more than make up for any cost of the incentive.
Almost two-thirds of respondents indicate they negotiate
at least sometimes; however, a strong majority of the time,
less than 20% of the offers result in negotiations. Only 13%
of respondents report negotiation rates over 40%.
Not surprisingly, when negotiations occur, it’s mostly related
to the amount of the increase or the fact that current rent
is close to, or higher than, market price. However, a material
percentage of respondents are willing to negotiate with their
“best” residents—i.e. those who are long tenured, have paid
on time, caused no issues, etc. Not surprisingly, other key
factors include vacancy/availability and timing of expirations.
( 7 )
Q: Lastly, were there any surprises
you’d like to share?
JS: Renewal transfers (for example when
a student wants to move from 2 bedroom
to 4 bedroom) couldn’t be completed
through the renewal offer letter. But we
knew that and had a work-around plan
in place.
DD: The biggest thing the first year was
that residents would accept an offer but
then not realize they still had to sign the
lease. So we had to follow up to get them
to sign the lease…telling them they had
accepted but not actually executed the
lease.
This year, we really marketed heavily about
the need to execute the lease online, and
now most residents are doing that. n
Use of Incentives
Never
46%
Frequently
14%
Sometimes
40%
Renewal Negotiation
Sometimes
57%
Frequently
6%
Never
37%
% of Offers Negotiated
61-80
2%
81-100
3%
1-20
69%
21-40
18%
41-60
8%

8. Despite the large number of communities who engage in at least some
negotiation, a surprisingly few have ever been given negotiation
training. This is clearly an area of opportunity for most operators.
Negotiation Factors
A
m
ountofIncrease
B
udget
C
loseness
to
M
arketC
onstruction
Expiration
Tim
ing
Length
ofLease
Life
Situations
ResidentQ
uality
U
nitC
haracteristics
Vacancy/A
vailability
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
( 8 )
Negotiation Training?
Yes
27%
No
73%

9. Recommendations
Based on the survey, we recommend:
• In normal economic times, send out renewals well in advance of expirations. Since responses
typically come in the same month as when renewal offers are sent, this gives operators more
time to adjust to notices than if offers are sent later.
• Share actual renewal performance with sites so they are less likely to believe they’re renewing
more frequently than they are.
• Reduce the time spent creating renewal offers through use of a pricing and revenue
management system.
• Reduce the administrative time spent delivering and administering renewals through the use
of an online leasing system.
• A/B test the use of time-based renewal incentives to determine whether the benefits
outweigh the costs.
• Provide renewal negotiation training to all associates who may engage in such activity.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to specifically thank the sponsors of this white paper, On-Site, for their
support. We would also like to thank all the hard-working site and corporate associates who
invested time in responding to our survey.
( 9 )

10. Donald Davidoff has been a senior executive in the multi-family housing
industry working in both market rate housing and senior independent living.
Perhaps best known for leading the development and implementation of the
Lease Rent OptionsTM
(LRO) pricing software, his real mission for the past
15+ years has been to bring data analysis and data-driven decision making
to all aspects of multi-family housing operations. He has direct experience
in sales, marketing, customer engagement and associate workflow.
About D2 Demand Solutions, Inc.
D2 Demand Solutions finds its niche where technology and people meet. We have decades of
experience bridging the gap between technology and people whether it’s prospects, customers
or associates (or all three). We’ve implemented game-changing programs in pricing and revenue
management, eCommerce and internal workflow. We know how to design and build systems that
are more intuitive, how to manage cultural change and how to train a modern, adult workforce.
About On-Site
Founded in 1999 with technology and service 100% based in the U.S., On-Site is bringing the
apartment industry up-to-speed with what today’s consumer expects from the renting experience:
modern technology and a focus on usability. On-Site’s end-to-end platform covers everything from
community marketing and renter qualification to lease contract generation with e-signatures and
online storage. Plus integrated communication hubs to drive resident retention after move-in. The
result is a simplified rental experience that leads to greater customer satisfaction and translates
directly to the positive side of the balance sheet. For more information about On Site’s leasing
solutions, visit www.on-site.com or contact one of On-Site’s online leasing experts at (855) 667-6500.
About the Author
© 2016 D2 Demand Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved. This paper may not be reprinted or redistributed without the expressed written permission of D2 Demand
Solutions, Inc.
Contact Information
Donald Davidoff
donald@d2demand.com
303-588-1389
www.d2demand.com
( 10 )