Seasonal Tips to Keep Your Residents Invested Year-Long
Anyone who manages an apartment building or condo complex knows the value of maintaining long-term relationships with reliable residents. You want residents who are not only dependable, but who are also invested in maintaining a good atmosphere for everyone in the building. By encouraging a sense of community spirit within your building, you can create an environment that anyone would want to live in, and stay! Try some of the following tips for every season to boost community involvement and build a positive environment for your residents to live in – you may be surprised at just how big of an impact it can have on both your profits and your residents’ happiness!
Spring
Try creating a community garden in a common area and encourage your renters to use it and share with one another! By including benches and tables in the same area, you might find your residents getting to know one another while working together to improve the building they live in! Turning the front yard into a community garden has many benefits: it will make the yard more beautiful, create a functional living space outside, encourage residents to get to know one another, and help them feel invested in the property as a whole! When your occupants feel they have a part in maintaining something within the building that they can feel proud of, they will be much more likely to renew that lease for next year and will look forward to planning and organizing the space. Plus, it’s fun! It allows an opportunity for socializing with neighbors, and you get to enjoy the (literal) fruits of your labor when it’s all finished! It’s win-win, really.
Summer
Host an apartment-wide potluck or barbeque in a common area! It will give your residents a chance to meet their neighbors, and it’ll give you a chance to unwind and get to know your residents on a more personal level. When we fall into a strictly business-type relationship with our residents, we tend to forget that we’re dealing with people, not apartment numbers, and it shows in the general climate of the building. Get to know everyone by name, greet them with a smile, and they will feel more invested in the property and with you as a person! You could even create an apartment cookbook by asking residents to share their favorite recipes for the potluck and add to it every year. Traditions like these work wonderfully to get your residents looking forward to another year in your building! It also gives everyone a chance to meet their neighbors in a fun, relaxed environment which is great for community spirit.
Fall
Try to organize a photography or art contest among your community members – residents can display their piece in a common area and the winner can be determined by popular vote! The winning pieces could be used to decorate the common areas of the building. Your residents will feel more at home, because they’ll actually have a say in how the common areas are maintained! Rather than doing this only once a year, you could hold this contest once every couple of months and rotate the pieces out on a semi regular basis. It’ll keep your building looking beautiful and updated, and your residents will feel a real sense of pride seeing their art on display for the community to enjoy.
Winter
In the same vein as the photography contest, host a seasonal decorating contest and try to get every single one of your residents involved. With holiday lights on every balcony and wreaths on every door, your building will look festive, beautiful, and inviting! Give your residents some incentive by offering a gift basket or a discount on rent and have them vote for their favorites. You may even find that your residents will try to outdo each other year after year and encourage one another to participate, because there are few things more striking than an entire apartment building decked out in lights. They’ll be able to see and enjoy the sum of all of their efforts and really get into the holiday spirit. You could even arrange a building-wide “secret Santa” type gift exchange to really keep that positive atmosphere going.
By getting your residents involved in the things going on around your building, you can help them build relationships with each other and work together for the good of the entire property! They will feel invested in their home and will be more likely to stay long-term to maintain the friendships and environment they’ve worked with you to build. Community gardens, building-wide contests, and traditional get-togethers are just a few ways for you to foster a positive atmosphere and community spirit within your building. Do you have any other ideas to boost community involvement? Leave a reply in the comment section below!
