Contributed by Christopher Dembitz, Clark Whitehill Enterprises, Inc.

Reward the entire staff, especially maintenance personnel, when someone renews.

A key part of our compensation program is the lease renewal bonus.  Everyone at a site gets a monetary bonus (based on their position) when a lease is renewed.  This works very well for maintenance personnel, as they are often the deciding factor in whether or not someone renews.  It gives them an extra incentive to do the job right the first time, as well as to do the extras…helping someone carry in groceries, hanging a picture or just stopping to chat for a moment.  Often times, after someone moves in, they will visit the office very infrequently.  This makes the maintenance team the face of the property. By rewarding everyone at the site for renewals, it truly becomes a team effort. Sites create bulletin boards to track renewal performance.

Renewals have increased 5%-10% since we shifted more of the compensation package to renewal performance.  The only time it costs us more for this program is when renewals are higher than average…thus everyone wins.