Maximizing Lease Conversions: Data Insights from the Leasing Funnel

Based on the analysis of 1.5 million leads across 4,300 properties in the 2024 peak leasing season, we outlined the key strategies for improving lease conversion rates at every stage of the leasing funnel. The leasing funnel represents the journey a prospect takes from initial inquiry to signing a lease. It can be broken down into three main stages: inquiry, tour scheduled, and tour completed.  

The data reveals that, on average, only 8.7% of prospects who enter the leasing funnel by filling out a guest card end up signing a lease. This means properties need about 12 inquiries to secure one lease during peak leasing season. However, top-performing properties achieve a 16.5% conversion rate, requiring only 6 inquiries per lease. What separates these top performers from others?

Let’s observe what the data has to say about the most impactful factors, specifically around lead generation and tours, that ultimately drive more conversions.

Capturing Leads and Getting Them to Book Tours

Based on the data, the goal at the first stage is to capture as many qualified leads as possible and guide them towards booking a tour. Why is this important? Because prospective renters who schedule a tour are 115% more likely to lease than those that don’t schedule. The data reveals that specific technology and techniques impact a higher conversion rate from inquiry to booked tour:

• Offer Multiple Tour Types: Properties offering agent-guided, self-guided, video, and virtual tours see a 22% increase in lead count and a 25% increase in tour scheduling. Additionally, leads that took 2 or more different tour types were 79% more likely to lease than those that only took an agent guided tour.

• Answer Every Call: Even when a small number of initial calls from prospective renters go to voicemail (say 10%), properties saw 28% fewer tours booked.  

• Utilize a Chatbot: A chatbot provides instant answers to prospect inquiries, captures leads at all hours, and can seamlessly guide leads toward scheduling a tour. Properties using both a chatbot and self-guided tours see a 73% increase in leads compared to those solely relying on CRM.

• Consider a Contact Center: Engaging a third-party contact center to answer leasing calls 24/7 will likely more than pay for itself, especially when you consider that ResMan’s Contact Center partner, Anyone Home, schedules on average 87% more tours than properties. This is because every phone call is answered and 98% of callers are asked if they want to schedule a tour.

Ensuring Tour Completion

Once a tour is booked, the next goal is to ensure the prospect takes the tour, as those who complete tours are 63% more likely to sign a lease. Here’s what the data says impacts and drives the completion of a tour:

• Automated Reminders: For every 100 tours scheduled, sending automated communication reminders resulted in 10 additional completed tours and potentially 3 more leases.

• Personalized Communication: While automated reminders are beneficial and do increase completed tours, personalized reminders from leasing agents perform even better, resulting in 21 more tours and 7 more leases. There is a tradeoff, of course since automated reminders don’t require any engagement from your onsite team, whereas personal reminders do.  

Technology: The Difference Maker

Intuitively, we probably all sense that technology plays a role in driving conversion at various stages in the leasing funnel. A regression analysis allows us to quantify the impact of different technologies at different stages of the funnel, and the impact is substantial. Properties with a chatbot have 23% more leads and schedule 41% more tours than properties with only a CRM system. Self-guided tours result in 50% more leads and 105% more tours. But having a Contact Center to answer leasing calls has the biggest impact, generating 90% more leads and 125% more tours.  

By understanding the leasing funnel and implementing strategies that drive conversion at each stage, properties can significantly improve leasing efficiency, allowing them to reduce marketing spend and achieve higher occupancy. This will be especially important for the rest of 2024 and even during the 2025 leasing season when many regions will still be dealing with oversupply.  

To see the full leasing data analysis, watch our on-demand webinar here.

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