While Yieldstar may be good for the apartment owners and management companies who use the system, many apartment locators and future residents believe that it may be more of a hassle than it is worth.
In short, Yieldstar is a software management tool that many apartment communities are purchasing today. The selling point for the software is that it analyzes many different forms of data to come up with the best pricing for apartment units. Yieldstar takes into account factors including projected demand, recently achieved rental rates, least terms, move in dates, and other market dynamics that will help apartment communities gain the most amount of revenue for the apartment owners.
While this may seem like a great idea there are some negatives that mostly affect renters and the apartment locators that send their customers to the apartment communities that use the Yieldstar software. And this usually affects the customer if he/she is unaware of the pricing at the community.
Pricing will change daily and hourly at apartment communities that use Yieldstar. We have contacted many communities in the early morning hours for pricing and then relayed that information to our customers, who decided they were going to tour the properties in the afternoon. What we found out later that afternoon was the pricing we quoted our customers had changed by the time they visited the property. And the way of the change was upward in pricing.
When we contacted the apartment community that used Yieldstar, they stated that pricing can go up or down. In our experience pricing usually seems to go up. However, we also realize that our customers would not be so quick to contact us back if the pricing decreased.
What we can tell our customers moving forward is that pricing for the unit and square footage at the time we quote the amount may change in an hour or the next day if they choose to visit the property.
Many locators feel that the pricing should stay static for at least they day they were quoted the price. It is not good business for locators or leasing agents to quote a price to a customer who visits the community that same day and is told the price has changed.
