Two months to go until the 2008 elections and some Voter Registrar offices across the country are still in the midst of trying to find places to set-up voting locations and alternate voting locations. This is a great opportunity for apartment communities to turn a medium to large space in the community into a voting location. If you have a business center, a large lobby area/ office, Community center or room then you have space.

Plus this is what you get back:
1. Free advertising for your community
2. Get to know your neighbors and have them refer business to you
3. It is a civil and patriotic duty
4. Your residents will not have to travel far to vote

Make sure to:
1. Decorate with lots of American flags and 4th of July type items
2. Make sure to have the community and company name everywhere
3. Provide some food and refreshments
4. Provide lots of brochures and other collateral for this event.

Remember this is for one day and it is a good way to give back to the community and show some good will. It will return loads of good busines in return. Contact your local registrars office today. Vote!

The price of gas is in the news everyday and on our minds every time we see the gas gauge move its way down to “e.” This has also caught the eyes of many marketing departments. It has also caught the eyes of many apartment managers too. So now everyone is offering gas cards if you move-in by a certain date or sign a twelve month lease. It is so easy to offer this kind of incentive since it is in the news a lot. The problem also comes that everyone is offering it too. It takes away the incentive part. I can get a card for signing up for a new cell phone, getting five oil changes, or drinking thirty lattes. It is no longer the big deal if a dozen other businesses are using this incentive.

So if not a gas card then what? Well another area hitting our wallets is the grocery bill. Have you seen your grocery bill lately? A gift card to the nearby supermarket has a lot more value now. This is just as an important of an issue as gas prices. We all have to eat and not having to pay for groceries for a little while can be a bigger incentive with the gas cards you get from the billion of others you do business with. I am not saying do away with the gas card, but why not offer a choice. Another great idea in larger metro areas is public transportation passes. Often if you pre-pay for a month or longer the deals get better and better. Mass transit is getting pretty popular even in California where the car is king.

We recently had a good friend, who is a Real Estate Agent, ask us to help her find a short-term rental for one of her clients who just sold their home. I was surprised she did not already have connections with a local apartment home community. She told us she did have a connection, but when she called them they were out of what her clients needed. She didn’t know anyone else to call. This is a case of untapped resources for apartment communties and where blogging can help.

Even though the Real Estate market is a bit down right now there are people who are still buying and selling. The Real Estate Agent loved the idea of looking for an apartment on a blog since she can subscribe to the apartment blogs in the area she services. She can easily find out who has apartments available and contact them directly. She can also unsubscribe anytime too. This makes it very easy for her to connect with the apartment communities in her area without the apartment community having to constantly email her updates or her calling them to only find out they are full. She has already started to subscribe to blogs and telling other agents.