Alcove's marketing and lease up process includes listing creation, initial property inspection and marketing materials, marketing distribution, application processing, tenant countersignature, and lease-up reviews.
Listing Creation
How does Alcove create the listing for my property?
- Onboarding Review and Listing Upload: We start by reviewing your onboarding and uploaded your listing with the provided availability date.
- Photos and Descriptions: We upload photos and descriptions from provided external listing sites such as Zillow or AirBnb.
- Tags and Pricing: Relevant tags are added based on amenities, and bedrooms are priced according to your requested starting price.
- Lead Distribution: The listing is shared with our sales team and distributed to relevant leads (based on location/pricing/date) via text blast.
Initial Property Inspection and Marketing Materials
How do I prep my property for marketing and showings?
- Provide Access: Go to the left-hand side toolbar and click on 'Manage Access'. From there, you can specify your initial access method. To provide temporary access to your home, we suggest installing a lockbox (sample lockbox). These lockboxes typically range in price from $10 to $15 and can be purchased from a nearby home depot or online from Amazon.
- Schedule Shift: Under Marketing your listings, select 'View details' under "Inspections & Marketing Materials Scheduled date" and select "Schedule in Service Portal". To complete your request, simply fill out the service form. Our vendor will arrive at your property during the designated time range you provided. Once the vendor confirms the appointment, you will receive an email confirmation. If you have any questions or need to communicate with the vendor directly, you can visit Service Request and chat with them on the ticket there.
- Follow-Up Communication: If no initial property inspection and marketing materials are scheduled or access for tours is not provided, we will send follow-up emails and texts.
Marketing Distribution
How is my property distributed to your partner marketing channels?
- Automation Syndications: Immediately upon your property going live on Alcove, your listing will syndicate with Zumper and SpareRoom.
- Manual Postings: Within 1-2 business days, our marketing team will post your listing on our other partner sites such as Roomies, Rentberry, Facebook, and Appfolio (syndicates with Zillow, Rent.com, Realtor.com, and 20+ other sites).
- Google Ads: Alcove runs regionally targeted Performance Max and Search Google Ads directing 10,000+ leads each month to our listings page.
- Leads: Our sales team will reach out to any leads for your property and walk them through the application process as well as answer any questions.
- More detailed information on Alcove's marketing distribution process can be found here
Application Processing
What happens when I get my first applicant?
- Application Notification: Once you receive your first qualified applicant, you will receive both a text and email notification with applicant details.
- Review and Approve: Screening information includes background check, credit check, and landlord references. These can be reviewed in your portal where each applicant can be approved or denied.
- Applicant Countersigns: Once approved, the applicant will be sent a lease to sign. At this point the applicant may either sign their lease, request a tour before signing, or deactivate their application and move forward with another Alcove home.
Leasing Up Your Home
What happens when my first lease is signed?
- After 15 days: If the listing appears to have strong application traction and be on track for a 30 day lease up, no further action will be taken. If there are no current applications and Smart Pricing is turned on, the price will automatically be reduced. If there are no current applications and Smart Pricing is turned off, an email will be automatically sent explaining the benefits of Smart Pricing.
- After 30 days: If the home is not fully leased at the 30 day mark, it will be escalated to the leasing team for further review. The team will then compile a report include market comparisons and feedback from the leasing team with suggestions to get your home leased up ASAP.
- Home Leased Up: Once all of the rooms in the home are fully leased up it will be removed from the Alcove site. 90 days before an upcoming vacancy, the current tenant will be invited to renew. If the tenant does not renew by 60 days out, we will begin marketing the upcoming vacancy.