At our community, we began marking each move-in and move-out date on our site plan. To our surprise, we found that certain apartments turn over more frequently then others. We then began walking the apartments with the higher turnover to look for a “reason.”

One reason we found was light—a particular apartment that turned more frequently was located in a dark area of the community. We had to tour the prospect through a dark hall, only to enter a dark apartment. By increasing lighting and installing some apartment upgrades, we were able to lease the apartment leased within twenty-four hours.

We now look at our communities differently-and are approaching high-turnover apartments with an eye toward fixing their specific “problems.”

Contributed by Jeff Solliday