How To Increase Apartment Rental Income AND Have Your Residents Thank You

Niche-focused companies are offering the Internet as a revenue generating amenity for your residents in a brand new way. There is one company that allows you to have your cake, and eat it too. Think zero cost up front with a zero loss guarantee. Fiber Stream will design, install and launch Property-Wide Wi-Fi at zero cost up front for qualifying properties. Moreover, an agreement is required that once the profit margin is above the break-even point, the property would take over the revenue generating Internet system; hence the zero loss guarantee.

Through the course of one year, as new leases are signed, the entire property is converted to the new Internet plan. During this assimilation process, there is room in the budget for a 10% opt-out rate if you decide to offer this to those who do not use the Internet (do these people still exist?).

The residents are by no means forced to use the Internet; they are incentivized because they would be paying for their fair share of the amenity. The billing is most commonly done through a few different strategies: 1) Ratio Utility Billing System (RUBS) or 2) A Rental Rate Strategy.

RUBS Strategy

There are advantages to a RUBS strategy; first the Internet isn’t reflected in the rental amount, allowing for optimization of market rates. Second, the residents clearly see their share of the Internet cost; this allows them to see their savings when compared side by side to local offerings. Moreover, the leasing staff can use the cost savings as an added selling point.

One disadvantage of showing clear pricing is possible push-back from those who don’t use an Internet connection. However, a 10% opt-out rate is built into the program, so push-back is easily absorbed.

Rental Rate Strategy:

Including the Internet into the rent and creating a new stream of revenue can be as simple as raising the rental rates.

For example, Apartment A has a rent of $1,000, and the local providers o