Benjamin Zimmer, Executive Vice President
Property Solutions International, Inc.
www.propertysolutions.com

Property Solutions International was announced as winner of the “MBA Showdown” in New York City, NY. The MBA Showdown, a best-of-the-best competition among winning business plans from the nation’s top colleges, included competing schools such as Harvard, Stanford, and Berkeley. The winning team, Property Solutions, represented Brigham Young University and was awarded $50,000 cash.

The Internet is already a vital part of apartment marketing. Thirty-six percent of apartment searches are done online, and this will grow in 2004. With more prospects looking for housing online, it is critical to cater to website visitors.

Maintain unique websites for each community. Websites that require more than a two-click drilldown to reach individual property information lose 50 percent of their web traffic. For this reason, avoid putting all portfolio properties on one corporate website. Maintaining unique websites for each apartment community (with unique web addresses) will yield big dividends.

Drive traffic to your apartment website: Promote your apartment community website, and make sure your website is updated. Once visitors come to your site, they should find updated vacancy postings and online rental applications.