Gainesville Apartments

New Gainesville Apartments Announced for Fall 2009

Aubrey Zaffke (Gainesville Apartments by Trimark Properties) — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 08:28:16 -0700

While building is down throughout most of the country, Trimark Properties announced earlier this week that they will be breaking ground on two new Gainesville apartments near the Univeristy of Florida campus this month. The two new developments are slated for July 2009 completion, and will be ready long in advance of their August 2009 move-in dates for new residents.

Trimark Properties has built several new luxury apartment complexes in the last few years.

Previous Gainesville Apartments Developed:

Ashton Lane
Heritage Oaks
Royale Palms
Camden Court

This year, the Trimark Properties development team will be building:

New Phase of Luxury apartments at Stratford Court
Sabal Palms

Trimark Properties just added the webpages for these two properties to their Gainesville apartments website earlier this month. The Sabal Palms Gainesville Apartments page shows that there will be three floorplans, including two different 3 bedroom / 3 bathroom floorplans, and a spacious 4 bedroom / 4 bathroom floorplan. One of the three bedroom floorplans includes a bay window area.

Stratford Court's new phase will be announced in further detail in the next few weeks. Stratford Court will offer mainly 2 bedroom / 2 bathroom and 3 bedroom / 3 bathroom floorplans.

Both apartment complexes will be within 2 blocks of the UF campus and walking distance to Sorority Row in the popular University Heights overlay. Features will include gourmet kitchens with granite countertops, energy efficient appliance packages, real maple wood cabinetry in the kitchen and luxury bathrooms, washer/dryers included, oversized windows for abundant sunlights, picture shelves in each big bedroom, dual master suites, private luxury bathrooms with porcelain tile and pedestal sinks, designer light fixtures and upgraded black appliance packages.

For further details, check out their websites.

Why Some Active Rain Posts get De-Indexed By Google

Aubrey Zaffke (Gainesville Apartments by Trimark Properties) — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 10:28:53 -0700

I love the Active Rain hosted blogs and really enjoy the social networking you can find on the site-- but I've recently noticed that some pages get indexed longterm by Google, and some pages an dropped within several days from the search engine result pages.

How to check if your blog posts are indexed by Google:

First, go to your blog on Active Rain
Copy the entire URL-- except the Http://
mine is activerain.com/blogs/gainesvilleapartments
Open a Google search
Type site:
then paste the copied URL (minus the http://) into the search bar
mine will read site:activerain.com/blogs/gainesvilleapartments
Hit enter
Look at what is displayed in the search results

Questions to ask yourself about the results:

Most importantly: are all of your individual blog posts listed?
Are some of your individual posts being indexed, and not others?
Is the URL for your Active Rain blog in the index?
Are your tag clouds being indexed?
Are your archives being indexed?

Here's what it should look like ideally:

Each individual blog post should be indexed and listed in the results
Check out the title and description and consider how you can write them in the future to maximize your click through
Your main blog page should be indexed
Your archives should be indexed
Your tags should be indexed

Share your results here. <----- Why? So we can help each other understand what pages are being indexed on Active Rain by Google, and what we can do to maximize our collective and individual blogging on the site.

UF Housing

Aubrey Zaffke (Gainesville Apartments by Trimark Properties) — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 15:47:02 -0700

Trimark Properties launched the beta version of their new webpage focused on showcasing listings of their UF Housing Options. Aimed at incoming freshmen, undergraduate and graduate students, their new webpage will offer a resource which allows consumers to check availability, compare University of Florida housing options, check pricing and take virtual tours. The webpage currently only lists information on a few of their offerings, including The Ivy House, The Courtyards and Windsor Hall-- but over the next few weeks, the page will expand to include other offerings as well.

Finding housing near the University of Florida campus is an ongoing challenge for students. With a limited number of parking spaces and a high number of students attempting to access the campus via foot, there is an ever-increasing demand for private luxury dorms, duplexes, luxury apartments and houses for rent within the 5 block radius considered to be "close to campus". UF housing options are incredibly limited for those students who apply to UF late in the year, since on-campus housing is limited and the waitlist is very long. Students should check out this blog looking for UF Dorms & Housing. The same writer is also offering tips on the Gainesville apartments market.

Trimark Properties currently offers the following UF student housing options:

The Ivy House- female-only private dorm just 1 block from campus, next to Norman Hall
Windsor Hall - co-ed luxury dorm for UF students, 2 blocks from class
The Courtyards - student apartment suites, across the street from UF
Houses for rent - 3 to 7 bedrooms in size (jointly leased)
Luxury apartments for rent - including Stratford Court and Heritage Oaks
Affordable apartments for rent - including University Heights and Arbor Lofts

The most common request made by students is for furnished, all-inclusive single dorm rooms for Fall 2008 move-in. For that request, Trimark Properties management recommends:

The Ivy House for those want to have a typical dorm set up, but with a more luxurious setting and a guaranteed single dorm room
Windsor Hall for those that do not want to share a bathroom with others (private studio suites are available for both men and women; there is a female-only building and a co-ed building)

For complete details, visit the UF Housing page on the Trimark Properties website.

Luxury Apartments and Condos in Gainesville, Near UF

Aubrey Zaffke (Gainesville Apartments by Trimark Properties) — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 15:34:21 -0700

Well it's official!

Trimark has broken ground on their 5th luxury apartment complex in Gainesville, Florida. Named Ashton Lane, the complex will be located just two blocks from the University of Florida (and walking distance to University of Florida classes). Luxury apartments near UF has become a signature niche within the Trimark portfolio, and because of that, Trimark has added a page to their website dedicated fully to the luxury apartments and condos near UF.

The Ashton Lane page will be launched within the next few weeks, with floorplans and a pre-construction rendering.

Private UF Dorm Changes Ownership

Aubrey Zaffke (Gainesville Apartments by Trimark Properties) — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 08:46:41 -0700

Exciting news!

We purchased Windsor Hall Gainesville - a University of Florida Dorms alternative. The closing went smoothly on August 15th, 2007 and we began managing the dorm-style double suites and the large single (studio-style) suites on Thursdy August 16th. We've begun leasing the last remaining suites for Fall 2007 move-in. It's an exciting time!

Windsor Hall offers a unique alternative to traditional University of Florida dorms. Unlike the UF Housing policies, Windsor Hall policies:
* Guarantee that UF students will receive the exact floorplan type they request
* Windsor Hall does not overbook rooms or sell more leases than there are rooms for (UF is famous for placing students who wanted single dorm suites into temporary triples-- what is a temporary triple? A room that is only designed and barely big enough for 2 occupants-- but they put in 3 occupants).
* Offers assigned parking and does not oversell the lots, so that students that choose to live at Windsor Hall will always have a place to park their cars.
* Offers both a co-ed and female-only building choice.
* Offers luxury suites with upgraded furniture package to every student who chooses to live at Windsor.
* Offers private bathrooms attached to each luxury suite (no sharing bathrooms with an entire floor of people)
* Offers an on-site gym and fitness center within steps of your suite.
* Offers complete maintenance and resident suppot, 24 hours per day.
* Windsor Hall offers guaranteed availability of space for each occupant who signs a lease.

Windsor Hall offers several room styles (all are luxury suites with all-inclusive rent packages and full furniture packages). Suite styles include:
* Luxury studios with private luxury bathrooms and full kitchenettes
* Luxury studios with shared upgraded bathroom/kitchenettes
* Luxury single rooms with private or shared upscale bath/kitchenettes
* Luxury double suites with large, luxury bathrooms, full furniture packages, and full kitchenettes
* X-Lg Double suites (huge) on 1st, 2nd, and 3rd floors

Windsor Hall amenities include:
* Privately owned UF Housing
* Luxury suites
* Full furniture packages with captain's beds and desk sets
* Upscale bathrooms, many with pedestal sinks and ALL with full-size bathtubs
* Convenience elevators
* Large pool
* Full fitness center and gym
* On-site night manager
* Professional Roommate matching available at no extra charge

Click here to schedule an in-person tour.

.EDU Blog About Apartment Rentals - Guest Bloggers Inivted

Aubrey Zaffke (Gainesville Apartments by Trimark Properties) — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 07:26:26 -0700

Good morning, Active Rain members!

As those of you who regularly read our blog know, we've been researching the best services for blogging, and we've tried several different services including:

Private Hosting
Vox.com
Livejournal.com
ActiveRain.com
Blogger.com

At this time, we've decided to go with private hosting while using the Blogger service. As others have noted, Blogger is quickly indexed by Google (normally within an hour). And by hosting the blogger template on our own site, we are able to completely edit ALL code, not just the template, to remove those pesty nofollow tags and other non-helpful coding that can be imbedded.

We will be using the blog to discuss our findings in real estate and apartment rental marketing, as well as advertising the changes in our growing business located in Gainesville, Florida. The new apartment marketing blog can be found at the Smart Apartments Blog, which discusses UF dorms, UF Housing & Gainesville Apartments. There's also a blog that just discusses the Gainesville apartments market. For those of you who are not familiar with our company, we are an LLC which specializes in real estate management for properties walking distance to the University of Florida campus. We offer student housing, luxury Gainesville apartments, commercial office and retail space, and historic houses.

We will be opening it up for guest blogging, too, for companies that are our affiliates on Active Rain. If you are interested in posting guest blog articles about your company (linking to your site allowed, of course), comment here or email me directly.

Hope to hear from you soon!

Aubrey

What Blog Service do YOU use, off of Active Rain?

Aubrey Zaffke (Gainesville Apartments by Trimark Properties) — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 09:44:26 -0700

We've recently decided to expand our real estate marketing platform to include a blog about the real estate industry, specifically including information on the rental market, as well as publishing our press releases and blogging about living in Gainesville. I enjoy blogging on Active Rain, but thus far, I seem to be mostly visited by other members (ie: real estate professionals) rather than visited by consumers, reporters, etc.

We've been researching how to do this for a few weeks and tested a few blogs, including gainesvilleapartements.blogspot.com, livejournal, blogsavy, and Active Rain (of course).

Another member pointed out that blogspot blogs (also known as Blogger) have no follow tags in both the post body and the comments, to prevent spam, when posting it on Blogspot. It's a free service (and free of ads) but you seem to get what you pay for with them. It's one of the few instances where I find myself disappointed with Google. We've therefore decided to self-host the blog ourselves, on a server we have access to.

SO, for those of you who have blogs off of Active Rain, what do you use? Would you recommend the service to us, to promote our Gainesville Florida Apartments and House Rentals?

Let me know! If you'd like, feel free to provide a link to your blog and critiques of the system.

Squidoo -- How to Find Gainesville Apartments and other Gainesville Rentals (Florida)

Aubrey Zaffke (Gainesville Apartments by Trimark Properties) — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 10:19:54 -0700

Well, we've finally completed our first Squidoo Lens, based on the recommendation of a friend. Squidoo offers very neat tools for webpage creation, but I found the HTML editor to be chunky and hard to handle.

We'll be updating the lens in the weeks to come, to include better navigation and potentially more photos of Gainesville apartments and houses for rent in Gainesville Florida. We only offer apartments for rent, so you won't find any listings for sales information in Gainesville on the squidoo lens at this time. We built the lens with the hope of driving traffic to our main gainesville florida apartments website which works as a brochure on our company for prospective renters.

What have you found out about traffic and squidoo? Have you done well? I heard that it is far more helpful for sales than for rentals, but our company focuses on apartments and not houses, and the only houses we offer are for rent... so this may not be the right type of market for us.

Agents Be Warned-- Do not Use Postlets with Craigslist!!

Aubrey Zaffke (Gainesville Apartments by Trimark Properties) — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 18:55:28 -0700

Don't Risk Being Banned From Craigslist

I've noticed a lot of recommendations on Active Rain for the 3rd party service sites Vflyer and Postlets. Like the rest of you, I love their functionality and think that the idea is fantastic, and my company often uses them to post listings for available Gainesville apartments. I've seen a lot of improvement in the last few years and hope that the sites remain in beta (and therefore, remain free) for a while.

However, many agents here on Active Rain have posted about using the services for 3rd party posting (or coded posting) on Craigslist, and this is a violation of the terms of use of the Craigslist posting service, and can result in having your account banned.

My company has used the services to post onto Craigslist in the past and was never caught-- but do you really want to risk a lawsuit that you cannot win, because you expressly agreed to the terms of use, or do you want to risk getting kicked off of Craigslist? Be careful. Don't do it.

There are several other very important issues outlined in the Craigslist TOU agreement that agents should read:

* Do not use craigslist to post "bait and switch"-- which means you must immediately remove an ad if the listing is sold
* Do not post "off topic" ads, such as links to blogs
* Consider this rule: "...hat includes links to commercial services or web sites, except as allowed in "services" and realize that it means that linking to your site within the housing section is actually a violation of their terms of use Realize that just because you haven't been caught, it doesn't mean you won't be.

Be careful. Read about the many users who have been banned or have had sites permanently blacklisted. Be careful! And good luck!

Adding Two New Gainesville Apartments to Gainesville Rentals Search Functionality

Aubrey Zaffke (Gainesville Apartments by Trimark Properties) — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 08:41:12 -0700

Gainesville Apartments Added to Rental Search in Gainesville

Well, it's official. We'll be building two new apartment complexes in Gainesville, Florida this year, and we are now in the process of adding the Gainesville apartments to the website's rentals seach functionality. This will allow prospective tenants to search by apartment name, apartment size (number of bedrooms), price per bedroom, total rental rate, and apartment type (in this case: luxury apartments) or proximity to UF campus. We specialize in student housing and housing for faculty and staff near the University of Florida, and these apartments will be luxury rentals with all the upscale features you would want, including washer/dryers in each apartment, Ethernet, gourmet kitchens, art nooks, and balconies with modern porch swings. You'll soon be able to see complete details on our Gainesville Apartments and other Gainesville Rentals website.

Apartment Lease Terminations in Gainesville

Aubrey Zaffke (Gainesville Apartments by Trimark Properties) — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 06:46:47 -0700

For those of you doing business in Gainesville or another college town, I'm sure you know the frustrations of lease signors or cosigners changing their minds and requesting terminations on previously completed leases.

My company is located in Gainesville, Florida, where 2 colleges and 1 university are responsible for the majority of our traffic and demand: University of Florida, Santa Fe Community College, and St Leo University (a junior college).

Of the three, our renters are normally from the University of Florida-- due to our location. All of our apartments are walking distance to UF classes, and because rentals near UF are in such high demand, our apartments pre lease very early in the year for mid-August move-in. Many of our renewals occur so early that it is only later that students realize that they did not get into the program that they wanted, or that they did not get the grant or scholarship that they applied for, or that a once in a lifetime job or internship opportunity has been made available to them-- in another city, state or country.

Because of this, June and July are fully of requests for terminations on gainesville rentals . In fact, we can expect at least 2 or 3 requests each year.

Our lease is very clear: our company has the sole right to refuse lease terminations, and in fact, our policy is to test the market and see if there remains any demand for the apartment, before we offer the termination to the previous lease signer and let them out of the lease.

How does your company handle such situations?

Changing Your Landing Page-- Increasing your closing rate

Aubrey Zaffke (Gainesville Apartments by Trimark Properties) — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 13:09:39 -0700

Since I have had a few emails from people asking what I meant in an earlier post about changing your website based on the user statistics you see, I decided to post about it.

A good example is our landing page for houses in gainesville, fl . Originally, this page was formatted much like our other pages, which are all for apartments. It looked VERY similar to this page for Union Street Apartments in Gainesville: header, left hand logo, right hand small image, list of sizes below.

We decided to change the page for the houses based on what people are looking for. We asked our potential clients, and they said that they were attracted to our houses and our brand because of our renovation work on historic offerings and particularly our houses with wood floors. People moving into these houses, with top prices, wanted a lot of space and a lot of amenities-- so we decided to incease the image size at the top, and show off the wood floor work that we do. Viola-- our bounce rate decreased over 40% once the new page was up. A very minor change-- for a huge increase in traffic.

We also decided to show ALL of our historic apartments here, too-- since most historic houses are 5+ bedrooms but many people wanted a smaller house. With a historic apartment, they get all the features and benefits of the house, with the charming look and feel, without having to spend upwards of $2500 per month. And our closing rate significantly changed on the hisotric apartments, too.

Aboutus.org is talking about YOUR SITE

Aubrey Zaffke (Gainesville Apartments by Trimark Properties) — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 11:18:20 -0700

Have you looked up your domain name on Abous.org?

Aboutus.org offers wiki pages to sites. I recently found a competitor's Aboutus.org webpage to be HIGHER RANKING than his actual website for one of his top keywords-- and his Aboutus.org page was filled with negative reviews of his site and services.

If you haven't already checked it out, I recommend you go to http://www.AboutUs.org and search for your domain name. Even if you haven't had your web development team create a page for you, it most likely already exists. Check to see if it is being crawled by the spiders and what the world is saying about you. This is what Trimark Properties' current Aboutus.org page looked like, when we found it.

Certainly, this is a great way to write a positive review about your site, as well as a tool for learning how to write for wikis.

Usage Data -- And how it Effects your Rank in Google

Aubrey Zaffke (Gainesville Apartments by Trimark Properties) — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 16:23:05 -0700

There's an interesting article on SEOMOZ about how usage data is effecting your results in the Google Search Engine Results Pages. Have you read it? If not, click here.

However, there is a FAR more important issue to consider here. The issue is not whether or not Google is using usage statistics to alter their search engine results pages-- the issue is whether or not YOU are using your usage stats to alter your site design, navigation, tags, and optimization.

Many of us are using stats reporting-- but how many of us are designing our sites around the data we are receiving?

A step by step approach, for those not currently utilizing usage data:

1) If you are not already doing so, sign up for a site statistics program through your hosting company. Many are free. Call your host and find out what they offer, or call your web designer and have him/her do it.

2) Sign up for a Google API. It's free and easy.

3) Sign up for Google's site statistics program.

4) Add the required tags to EVERY page on your site, including windows for your photo galleries.

5) Sign up for automatic reporting on a weekly basis, from both Google site stats and your hosting company's statistic programs. You'll get slightly different results and two different ways to interpret the data. Read it every Monday morning and plan your week around improving your results.

6) Read your site stats with a pen and highlighter in hand. Jot down questions and goals. Be specific.

7) Watch specific variables:
a) where your traffic comes from in terms of referrals
b) what keywords your customers are using (and then find out where you rank for these and other top keywords)
c) what is the BOUNCE rate for your top keywords and referrals

8) Then, come up with a plan on how to:
a) get similar referrals from other companies (with good anchor text)
b) increase your ranking in the SERPs for those keywords-- and similar phrases that are more popular
c) redesign your site with bounce rates in mind. Give your customers the kind of page they would like, based on what they are expecting when they type in the keyword or click through from the referrer.

Our company specializes in a slightly different business from most Active Rain members. Rather than selling homes, we offer gainesville apartments for rent. Our keywords are target market may be slightly different, but our action plan for search marketing is much the same: attract web traffic-- and keep it.

How to Track Your Site Statistics to Increase Results with Google

Aubrey Zaffke (Gainesville Apartments by Trimark Properties) — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 16:22:48 -0700

There's an interesting article on SEOMOZ about how usage data is effecting your results in the Google Search Engine Results Pages. Have you read it? If not, click here.

Many of us are using stats reporting-- but how many of us are designing our sites around the data we are receiving?

A step by step approach, for those not currently utilizing usage data:

2) Sign up for a Google API. It's free and easy.

3) Sign up for Google's site statistics program.

4) Add the required tags to EVERY page on your site, including windows for your photo galleries.

6) Read your site stats with a pen and highlighter in hand. Jot down questions and goals. Be specific.

Usage Data - and how it effects your ranking in Google

Aubrey Zaffke (Gainesville Apartments by Trimark Properties) — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 16:22:02 -0700

There's an interesting article on SEOMOZ about how usage data is effecting your results in the Google Search Engine Results Pages. Have you read it? If not, click here.

Many of us are using stats reporting-- but how many of us are designing our sites around the data we are receiving?

A step by step approach, for those not currently utilizing usage data:

2) Sign up for a Google API. It's free and easy.

3) Sign up for Google's site statistics program.

4) Add the required tags to EVERY page on your site, including windows for your photo galleries.

6) Read your site stats with a pen and highlighter in hand. Jot down questions and goals. Be specific.

Vflyer Updates Their Offerings

Aubrey Zaffke (Gainesville Apartments by Trimark Properties) — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 08:34:03 -0700

VFlyer is now offering "watermarks" within their images and flyers, like this:

Just wanted to make sure that everyone knew about the improvement!

You can read more about it here: http://www.vflyerblog.com/blog/2007/06/12/user-enhanced-images/

VFlyer Updates Their Offering

Aubrey Zaffke (Gainesville Apartments by Trimark Properties) — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 08:13:09 -0700

VFlyer is now offering "watermarks" within their images and flyers, like this:

Just wanted to make sure that everyone knew about the improvement!

You can read more about it here: http://www.vflyerblog.com/blog/2007/06/12/user-enhanced-images/

UPDATE:
We logged back onto our old Vflyer account, and after playing with the functionality of this, I'm not so impressed . Here's why:

You are very limited in color, style, placement which makes it look a bit like a "photoshop beginner" did the work
The image does not appear to be optimized after editing
You can do FAR more impressive work by simply loading the image into Fireworks first.

We really enjoy Vflyer (especially the widgets that they have been working on), but I don't think that this is their best functioning tool. Hopefully it will come along in terms of design. It's a great idea, just not very effective.

Ribbon Cutting Scheduled For Camden Court

Aubrey Zaffke (Gainesville Apartments by Trimark Properties) — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:26:36 -0700

The Camden Court ribbon cutting has been officially scheduled for July 12, 2007. The Gainesville Mayor and several city commissioners are expected to speak. More information soon! Email me if you want an invitation.

Camden Court Luxury Gainesville Apartments detailed information online.

Myspace

Aubrey Zaffke (Gainesville Apartments by Trimark Properties) — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 08:04:56 -0700

I know that Pizza Hut and Blockbuster and many national advertisers use MySpace as a major source of traffic and demand... does anyone have any clever ideas on how to use MySpace?

Let me know! I'll soon be posting a summary of the ideas I receive as well as information about my own experienes!

UPDATE:
Myspace DOES in fact allow links, but it doesn't love the links, so you should take the utmost care when thinking that Myspace is good for seo or great for business. So far, we've done very little work on it-- and seen very little traffic. I don't expect Myspace to become one of our central means of obtaining strong traffic. But we'll keep you posted as we continue our research.

We are also considering Squidoo as another potential good way to get incoming traffic. Thoughts?

New Blog About Working With Gainesville Apartments

Aubrey Zaffke (Gainesville Apartments by Trimark Properties) — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 08:03:59 -0700

Hi everyone!

Thank you for all your help with recommendations on blogging software. We've begun an offsite blog about Gainesville apartments until we can launch the blog on our site about what it's like to live and work in apartments in Gainesville. Any recommendations? How do you decide what to post?

UPDATE:

We've continued to work on the blog and are now testing the possibilities of loading widgets and detailed property information using vflyer and have posted an example.

We hope to better optimize the blog in the months to come and also to customize the design a bit. We would like the posted flyers to include better links to the site, including means to sign up for tours and/or to view the entire photo gallery or even similar units.

1 Bedroom Apartments in Gainesville Fl - Lease Terminations

Aubrey Zaffke (Gainesville Apartments by Trimark Properties) — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 07:58:46 -0700

When reading over a Trimark apartment rental lease, you can see the company's official stance on termination of signed apartment leases: "terminations are granted at the sole discretion of the landlord". We explain this clause to every tenant verbally and point it out on the rental lease; we explain that we have a NO TERMINATION policy.

But as a responsible landlord which typically leases out 100% of our rental units (both apartments and houses for rent) within our residential division, we can't truly stick to this policy without doing a huge disservice to our residents. Instead, we evaluate each lease termination request on a first-come, first-served basis. We look at out current rental rates for the floorplan and price point; we look at market conditions, waitlists and recent traffic in the office for similar apartments or houses. We ask ourselves if the apartment CAN indeed be re-signed. If so, we attempt to get the unit filled by a resident who will be happily living with us during the lease term (we try to find someone to refill the apartment). We place new ads, launch new campaigns, open up and spruce up model apartments-- all at a hefty cost, and it's a lot of work. But I respect the Trimark policy for what it really is: an attempt to do the best thing possible for every customer, even one who no longer wants to do business with us. It puts a lot of pressure on the sales and marketing departments, but we don't complain because we all agree: we want to help the customer.

Honestly, this has a huge impact on my morale at work. I like working for an ethical company. After growing up in the family business and then leaving it for "corporate America", I really respect my bosses (who own the company and take the personal financial risk when they release a tenant from a lease). It makes me appreciate my job even more.

This week, we've had several termination requests. Several of our residents are students who have either graduated early, or did not get accepted to their program as expected, or feel that they can no longer remain in Gainesville or can no longer afford the apartment (I believe that one of them was fired from their jobs). Trimark handles all lease terminations the same, so they don't have to worry about being 'fair'--- they do not respond to the mitigating circumstances: instead, they solely respond based on the risk of the lease not being re-signed. They come up with a fee to mitigate this expense and offer the termination fee to the apartment or house lease signor.

We're looking into these now. Not every apartment can be released; many of these floorplans were taken off the rental market many months ago-- the market for some of these apartments has expired, since tenants who would be otherwise interested in them have leased elsewhere (it's very, very late in the market here).

So, we now have:
- 2 bedroom historic apartment in Gainesville
- 1 bedroom for rent within a 4 bedroom townhouse
- studio rental near UF campus with wood floors
- 2 bedroom apartment in Gainesville FL

I often wonder how other companies handle termination requests. How do you handle them? Email me and let me know (I'll keep your responses confidential).

Adding a Blog to your current real estate site

Aubrey Zaffke (Gainesville Apartments by Trimark Properties) — Tue, 15 May 2007 07:49:19 -0700

Hi everyone!

We're in the process of setting up a blog on another community (not on our site) and we want to add a blog to our current site. It's a real estate site focusing on apartments in gainesville, you can see the site here: http://www.trimarkproperties.com/ . We originally planned on just creating a blog freehand (ie: designing a web page that looked like a blog without a content management system) but since then, we've planned out who/how the blog will be updated, and the person who will be doing most of the writing isn't very technical. So now, we want to add a Blog to our website that has it's own content management system (something like Blogger or Wordpress etc).

Unfortuantely, I'm not sure how to do that. We've never actually added an exterior content management system to our site (we have a dynamic site but we run our own database and CMS system that we've developed, to control pricing and availability).

ActiveRain seems like a great place to ask these questions:
A) Do you have a blog on your site that you set up yourself (ie- did not give to an IT or web consultant to set up)?
B) Which system (Wordpress, Blogger, Eblogger, MovableType) are you using? Do you wish you had used another? Why?
C) How did you actually go about setting up the CMS to integrate into your own website?
D) Any recommendations about blogging on your own site vs blogging on a 3rd party site?

Thanks everyone for the help! Please link to anything that would be helpful for me to read!
Aubrey

Recommendations (links) to other real estate websites

Aubrey Zaffke (Gainesville Apartments by Trimark Properties) — Mon, 14 May 2007 11:08:01 -0700

Hi guys! We are going to be starting a new blog up and would be happy to give links to others who want to be referred-- and I think that this might be good for click thru and not just link value. Here's why: our target market is students. 25% of our renters (or more) graduate every year and leave Gainesville for big cities and their first jobs.

They are constantly asking us for recommendations on how to buy houses. We will need links to articles and to people we can refer. Email me or comment if you want to get included in the list. It will be a BLOG and not a list of links, btw. We're still in the planning stage (this is our first company blog and we are switching hosts right now) but it should be up soon.

The blog will be hosted on our standard Trimark Properties Gainesville Apartments site.

Gainesville Apartment Market Shift

Aubrey Zaffke (Gainesville Apartments by Trimark Properties) — Mon, 14 May 2007 10:20:57 -0700

Though we've been noticing that many of our competitiors have increased their rents by 5% or more this year, this in no way comes close to matching our cost increases in insurance or property taxes.

So how are the others doing it? Are our competitors lagging and looking to make a large increase next year? Are they absorbing the loss by laying off maintenance and groundsmen? Are they cutting costs by not cleaning apartments or replacing carpet?

One way or another, the end user is going to "pay" for the cost increase in both insurance and property taxes. The only question lays in whether they will pay in rent or in quality. Trimark has worked to keep the cost as low as possible, but we are passing it forward in rent and not a depreciation in quality of service or product.

How is your market responding? Let us know. Also, how are your rents compared to the Gainesville market? Feel free to look at our rents and email me questions. We post all rents and services included on our website at our Gainesville Apartments Website.