Marketing and Leasing

With our goal of maximizing Net Operating Income we strive to build waiting lists.  A full pipeline enables you to increase rental rates and maximize cash flow. To meet that goal, we offer several marketing and leasing initiatives including, but not limited to:

 

• Existing resident referrals
• Marketing to area employers and neighborhood businesses
• Website utilization
• Apartment directory and other newspaper advertising
• Demographic-based direct marketing
• Youth sports-team sponsorship
• Other apartment community referrals
• Maximizing curb appeal

 

Our on-site teams are trained to find creative ways to help rental prospects understand and appreciate the value of living in a Cohen-Esrey community. As we sell the benefits of an apartment’s features, we also make follow-up calls, write thank-you notes, and give prospect gifts. Our marketing and leasing techniques—both high-tech and personal touch—are customized for each specific property, whether it is a Section 42 tax credit community or a luxury market-rate high-rise.

 

 

Preserving the Physical Asset

Without appropriate focus, property management professionals can become office-bound, facing a pile of invoices to approve, budget variance reports, and endless meetings. Add to these tasks, the time it takes to build genuine customer relationships, and it’s easy to see how the physical asset could get neglected in the shuffle. Yet, to be managed well, the property itself must receive close attention.

 

This is why our senior management constantly conducts inspection tours of the properties in our portfolio. Not only does this provide another “pair of eyes” for the property, it also sends a message to our entire team that the physical condition of our properties is a priority.

The key elements to our preservation strategy include maximizing preventive and scheduled maintenance, reducing reactive maintenance and repair work, life-cycling major physical components, benchmarking supply costs and bidding contracted services.

 

 

Service Technologies, LLC

Services Technologies, LLC is a sister company of Cohen-Esrey Communities that provides supplementary maintenance assistance. Service Technologies can handle minor construction projects such as concrete repair, balcony and fence reconstruction, and other small projects that are outside the scope of normal maintenance.

 

 

Resident Retention

A vacated apartment unit can easily cost $1,000 and often much more. Thus, we make it our business to reduce turnover to the lowest possible levels. We respond quickly to service requests and require our on-site management team to call residents after service has been performed to guarantee satisfaction. We also distribute resident satisfaction surveys to ensure we are exceeding the expectations of our customers. When we care for the customer, we reduce turnover, cut marketing costs and rent loss, and increase cash flow.

 

 

Financial Services

We offer our clients flexible, accurate and timely financial reports. We will deliver all reports, 100 percent correct, in the format requested. Reports are received by the agreed-upon date each month. Unless otherwise requested, we send these reports electronically, or they can be web-accessed for real-time viewing.

 

 

Construction Services

Construction Technologies, LLC (CT) is another member of Cohen-Esrey’s family of companies. Construction Technologies manages the entire process of creating a plan for larger scale repairs, modernization or functional obsolescence. We coordinate the specifications and bidding of the project and see that the work is completed on schedule and on budget. We are also experienced in rebuilding structures that have been substantially damaged by fire or other casualties.

 

 

Taxes and Insurance Services

We’ve helped numerous clients realize substantial savings in the area of property taxes and insurance. Because of the increase in reappraisal frequencies, we review assessed valuations on an annual basis. We do much more than simply receive a tax bill and pay it. We carefully scrutinize the property, looking for reasons to argue for a reduction in value. Operating expenses, rent levels, occupancy, physical needs, neighborhood conditions and the market, in general, are all analyzed to support our case. In recent years, we’ve saved our clients more than $200 per unit per year.

 

 

Receivership Services

 

Cohen-Esrey Communities is well-known to the courts throughout the Midwest because of the number of receiverships that we have handled. We have the capacity to post the required receiver’s bonds on an expedited basis and are knowledgeable in the process required by the courts. We are particularly focused on liability issues that could be detrimental to the lender, borrower, or both. We have been appointed as receivers for 36 properties including 26 apartment communities comprising more than 5,000 units.