Advenir Living was founded by Stephen Vecchitto in 1996. Advenir acquires and develops multifamily and single-family built-for-rent properties, as well as medical office buildings which generate superior risk-adjusted returns for investors.

Since 2019, Advenir Chief Marketing Officer Joseph Mendez has been looking to integrate emerging digital platforms to streamline the leasing process. “We needed different strategies to make stronger use of our leads and make leads more effective, as well as to better control our marketing strategy,” he says. This objective became more urgent after 2020.

“Moving out of COVID, we started to research trends in centralization and automation of the leasing process. These tools help to give consistency to the leasing process on both stabilized communities and those experiencing team turnover. Additionally the process allows the leasing teams to adopt a more concierge-type approach to resident service and satisfaction.” The race to implement new technology has taken on a life of its own since the pandemic,” says Mendez. “After attending several industry conferences and seeing case studies of the centralization and automation process, Tour24 was the automation tool mentioned most often.”

One property in particular faced staffing issues. Advenir at Adams Farm offers 420 apartments in the tranquil, wooded setting of the Adams Farm neighborhood near shopping and dining venues in Greensboro, North Carolina. “During a period where we experienced turnover on the leasing team, we felt there was a great opportunity to pilot Tour24.”

All three of the Advenir sites in the pilot program benefitted from Tour24. At Adams Farm in particular, Tour24 has completely removed the need for in-person touring. “We have one hundred percent self-guided touring at Adams Farm, no in-person touring at all. Advenir at Adams Farm has provided valuable data as we look at the next steps in our goal of automation and centralization.”

Praising the community teams and the Tour24 staff, Mendez said, “They’ve done a fantastic job. Occupancy has gone up, and we were able to reduce our staffing needs in a region where it’s traditionally been hard to find people. We’ve shifted the mindset of our leasing professionals away from rote, repetitive tasks like scheduling tours and communicating back and forth with prospects. Now they can focus on after-tour tasks such as closing leases, addressing concerns, and filing reports.”

“We’ve been able to move our leasing teams down the chain to more productive work,” Mendez continues. “They’re focusing more on the move-in and thereafter. They’re doing follow-ups with the residents, which they couldn’t do before because they were so busy with tours. In all our Tour24 properties, processes are better.”

“Prospects like the option to tour at their leisure. As long as we follow up with them during the tour or right after, Tour24 has been very, very effective for us.”

With the success of Tour24 at these three (3) communities, Advenir Living will implement Tour24 on a wider portfolio basis, including the LEO Living SFR portfolio which is currently under construction. “We’ll have our fourth Tour24 property next week… The touring software never quits, and makes it so easy to bring new people into our communities.”