Search Results for: fear
RealPage acquires MyNewPlace: Marriage made in heaven?
Today’s post comes from our friend Bill Sitko over at Bsitko ; his content is ripe with great wit and keen insight. Today’s guest post is exactly what we expected and we love it…
First before I even begin I wanted to thank Mike for allowing me to blight his blog with some of my own prose. I hope to do him and his blog justice.
“Every noble acquisition is attended with its risks; he who fears to encounter the one must not expect to obtain the other” ~ Pietro Metastasio
A curious thing happened on the way home from work yesterday. I was parked at a light and as usual decided to glance down at my phone to see what had changed in social media since 5 minutes ago. Luckily I had TweetDeck up, I refreshed it and that cool looking blue background with white text announced that RealPage had acquired MyNewPlace. If you’re hearing this announcement for the first time right now your first reaction is probably WOW. I know mine was. My second reaction was “Are they planning on buying EVERYTHING?” but I digress.
Who are the players here?
MyNewPlace has been a player in the Internet Listing Services market for years. We used them several years ago with little conversion success (and it left us with a pretty drained pocketbook). The majority of us know RealPage and what they offer. MyNewPlace, on the surface, seems to be a perfect match for RealPage. They currently have no paid listing offerings and this acquisition will certainly give them presence there. In addition MyNewPlace has RentEngine which will give RealPage access to social media tools, a Craigslist posting tool, reputation management, pay per click campaigns, some great search engine optimization tools and a partridge in a pear tree. MyNewPlace will also be an integral part of their recently announced LeaseStar Marketplace. One thing that I find interesting about this new product is it will enable customers to talk or chat with a live leasing associate through their LevelOne service, and utilize their already robust leasing side package including 2D and 3D floor plans, some interactive site maps, beautiful pictures and a booking engine that can help check availabilities. MyNewPlace will be the lead generation channel that will power the LeaseStar Marketplace.
Press releases are lame.
The truth is this latest press release and acquisition from RealPage will attract plenty of attention but will it all be positive? Is RealPage becoming a little too big with too many product offerings that have the ability to shut out the competition? As with a lot of RealPage purchases, they will probably leave the MyNewPlace name alone but make the normal branding and integration changes so it plugs into their other offerings. That’s the way they’ve done it for most of their previous acquisitions, namely LevelOne, OpsTechnology and Lead2Lease. Is RealPage willing to change the ILS game? Will they use their power and money muscle to give Property Management companies more flexibility in branding and choice? Will they utilize social media to CHANGE how people find apartments? How successful will their SEO efforts be? Can they jump the organic board and launch MyNewPlace into the top 5 for results in lots of major markets?
What does this all mean?
I wish I had a crystal ball to get these answers, as well as the winning lottery numbers for tomorrow. I’m more interested in hearing what you think about it. Will RealPage change the game or will they just conform to it? Will this just be something else for them to monetize and charge a little extra than everyone else for or will they convert this service into something more powerful and revolutionary? Stay tuned…
Want to read the RealPage/MyNewPlace marriage vows? You can right here.
Happy renting everyone.
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Multifamily #Trust30: Greatness
Moving past the halfway point with day 16 of the #trust30 challenge –
Greatness appeals to the future. If I can be firm enough to-day to do right, and scorn eyes, I must have done so much right before as to defend me now. Be it how it will, do right now. Always scorn appearances, and you always may. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Trusting intuition and making decisions based on it is the most important activity of the creative artist and entrepreneur. If you are facing (and fearing) a difficult life decision, ask yourself these three questions:
1) “What are the costs of inaction?”….
2) “What kind of person do I want to be?”
3) “In the event of failure, could I generate an alternative positive outcome?”
Multifamily greatness
We recently purchased a property from a lending institution who had in turn taken it back from a previous ownership interest. When completing the due diligence phase of our process we discovered roughly 40 units in various stages of disrepair. Units we classify as down. Down to mean not habitable absent some major rehab.
It spoke loudly to the point of the first question – inaction. Banks are not property managers. And, in lieu of spending $25 to $30k to replace the roofs, they left them alone. Result of that inaction? Several hundred thousands of value wiped away.
Greatness starts with forecasting the consequence of in-actions. In this case, it would suffice to say that some back of the napkin math would have yielded an ROI that would have driven a decision to replace the roofs.
What kind of company do we want to be
At Mills Properties, we ask that question a lot. As of late it has been in the area of branding, marketing, digital footprint and the such. We have been slow in moving toward what we want to achieve part and parcel because of near 50% growth in community and unit count over the past four years. And, in part not having a real plan.
Fast forward to today. We have taken the time to craft a 40+ page branding/marketing plan that includes everything from font types and size for all thing forward facing to big ticket strategies to dominate the St. Louis Apartments on and off-line space. It lays it all out and captures how everything from curb appeal to lease contract signing ladders up into an overarching message for the neighborhoods and communities we serve. And, in advance our striving to make a splash nationally at some point.
It all starts with asking the right questions.
Multifamily failure
I think the best way to overcome failure is understand that it going to happen from time to time. In fact, I like what Tom Peters has to say about it, “reward
failure.” If you are not failing, you are not trying, you are not learning and thus you are not growing. Equity Residential cements this in their 10 ways to be a winner – one being ‘take educated risks.’ The expectation is that you gather every piece of information you can to include the counsel of others before you pull the trigger. And, if you fail, you simply have a group postmortem where you examine the facts and the various action points to see what could have been done better.
Off for a float trip
It’s Saturday, it’s raining and we are headed out for camping and a float trip. Should be loads of fun. I say that with lots of hope in mind.
Your hoping you have an amazing weekend contributor,
M
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Multifamily #Trust30: Character
Day 14 of the #Trust30 challenge – Trust
…Decide what you want the future to be and make it happen. Because you can. Write about your future now.
(Author: Cindy Gallop)
It’s an elegant way of saying Trust thyself. There is no way of really telling how many times a year we have brilliant ideas cross our mind only to be lost in the same instance. And, no way to tell just how many times that dismissal is a direct result of our innate lack of trust in our own wherewithal. Or, back to that ever persistent dream killer – fear.
What do I want people to say about me when I die
A number of years ago I took the time to write a personal creed for myself. The soul-searching was prompted by a book I was reading at the time; don’t quote me but I do believe it was Steven Covey’s 8th Habit. The methodology included thinking about your very own funeral. I know, morbid huh?
You are at the back of the room as you watch four people take the stage to speak about you: a family member, a co-worker, a coach, mentor, friend or otherwise and a civic/church member. In the exercise you wrote about all the things you would want those individuals to say about you. In doing so you would discern the things that meant the most to you in the way you would want to live life. In a word: character.
Once you defined the character traits, the next step consisted of writing your creed. And, once the creed was written it was time to pen your goals and strategies with which you went about achieving them, predicated on the creed. Or, what you were going to do to build your character.
Character leads the way
Every year in early Jan, I sit and pen my goals for the coming calendar year along with five years and ten years down the road. All predicated on my creed. All in an effort to work on character first, accomplishment second and gathering of things third. In my head if I work on character, accomplishments will come followed closely by money and the things that money can buy.
Over time I will post the creed and the goals that go along with it as one of the last steps in the methodology is to share openly with those that would hold you accountable to living up to what you penned. But, not yet.
What about you; what methodology do you use to create the future for yourself?
Your working on 2011 goals predicated on creed and aiming for good character contributor,
M
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Multifamily #Trust30: Like New
Day 13 of the #Trust30 challenge
…Can you remember the moment when you stopped walking a path of someone else, and started cutting your own? (Author: Bridget Pilloud)
I am a bit off prompt again today but hopefully you can appreciate the spirit of it.
I can remember the day like it was yesterday. It was late 1998 and I lived in Silverdale, Washington. I worked for a national REIT at the time. I was privileged to work for a gentleman that I still consider one of the best in the business especially as it relates to the topic of leadership. He was a teacher first and a business person second. Working for him was an absolute education.
The moment of truth for me came in the way of an employee concern. This individual had an alpha dog Type Triple A personality. Bite first and forget
about asking questions later. I had given it everything I had up to that point and resigned to calling my RM in. What did he do? Nothing! He listened to my plea for him to assist in taking care of this guy and he simply kept asking me what I was going to do about it? To me, I was doing what I was going to about it; I wanted him to deal with it.
Up to that point in my career; two things existed for me, 1. I worked on amazing assets and 2. the people loved what they did. The path I followed up to that point was one of little to no resistance to getting things done. At this moment the only path that existed for me was vertical and gave cause for a major pain in my side. And, I no ability to displace it. G thanks, Mr. RM man.
Fast forward: I survived!! Mr. RM man forced me to stare my moment of truth right in the eye and do something about. I had to choose my own path and fortunately it worked out. I was able to forge a new beginning with Type Triple A and he actually thanked me for taking the time to care. Whoa! Not what I expected to hear.
From that day forward, I looked at every employee issue – like new.
Your looking at everyday and every circumstance like new contributor,
M
Photo props to cheesy42
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Multifamily #Trust30: Afraid to do
Mike Brewer · · 1 Comment
This reminds me of the saying; The thing you fear most is the thing you should do next. Or, do something everyday that scares the hell out of you.
Public Speaking
I love the multifamily business with a purple passion. It has been the avenue that has paved lots of good fortune for me over the years. And, any chance I get to talk about any aspect of it; I take it.
Last night, I was a guest speaker for a professor at Washington University in St. Louis. I spoke on the topic of marketing and leasing up a re-development project called The Laurel Apartments. It’s an amazing project with amazing potential to change the social landscape of the neighborhood. It has everything a marketer could ever hope for in the way of an assignment.
That said and to the point; public speaking scares the hell out of me. It’s a dream of mine to be an accomplished public speaker over time so I jump at every scary chance to present not in spite of that fear but rather in celebration of it.
What are you afraid to do?
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