Have Questions About Marketing Your Suite With Sage Living?

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Waterloo is one of the most competitive rental markets in Ontario and year round marketing is a key strategy when achieving full occupancy each year. This article will review the use and importance of our year round marketing strategies.

Sage Living will charge all Owners who have a full management service package (the Elite Service Package), an annual marketing fee. This fee is collected so our office can retain resources to market your suite year round.

Marketing is not as simple as posting an ad or making a flyer. Generating rental leads has become much more sophisticated, relying largely on new software systems and social media campaigns.

Why Do I Pay For Marketing Every Year?

Simply because it’s needed.
Waterloo has a lot of student renters, but Waterloo also has a lot of competing student rental locations which are very similar to those offered by Sage. Keep in mind that many of these competing locations are not individually owned by single Suite Owners such as yourself. These competing locations are often owned and managed by the same corporate entity with large marketing budgets.

Student renters understand they have many rental options, and will take advantage of the large student housing supply, often renting based on value - where they can receive the best deal or where they can feel the most supported as a Tenant.

By not marketing your suite year round, positive brand awareness will decrease, the rental market will become less fair with competing locations purchasing a majority of the ad space, and the chances of vacancy will increase.

But My Tenant Renewed, Why Should I Pay For Marketing?

Owners should be aware that turn over in student housing is very high. An average student housing location in Waterloo could assume approximately 65% of their Tenants will leave each year.

While your current Tenant has renewed this year, the chances of their renewal become less likely each year. Should Owners pay less towards marketing, brand awareness and popularity of their location could decrease and chances of securing a new Tenant will likely also decrease.

With a 65% chance your suite could be vacant next year, Owners should be incentivized and rely on marketing strategies to ensure they can either retain their current Tenant or successfully rent their suite the following year should their Tenant cancel the lease.

The Waterloo Student Rental Market
Things to Know


1. The Prime Rental Season Begins Early

It’s important to understand that the Waterloo rental season will normally begin in September of each year and a majority of student leases in Waterloo are 12-months long beginning in September of each year. BUT, it’s also very important to understand that current Tenants who hold these 12-month long leases don’t have to tell their landlord if they intend to renew their lease or terminate their lease until after the prime rental season.

2. The Prime Rental Season Does Not Last Long

It’s also important to understand that the prime rental season will be similar to the student academic calendar. This means that the best rental leads will be collected between the months of September to April with significant decreases during academic mid-terms, exams or student holidays. The rental season will slow down significantly between the months of May to August as students will often leave Waterloo during these months to return home, begin summer jobs, and overall place less importance on securing student housing.


This is the problem

we have a massive amount of new leads that will begin to contact rental offices in September, but we often don’t have firm numbers on availability until months later. We also understand that it’s often better and more cost effective to retain a current Tenant as the Suite Owner could then save on the cost of cleaning the suite between the old and new Tenants.

So what can we do?

We develop a diverse marketing strategy
Each year we work as hard as possible to renew the current Tenant, because we understand this will often be the most cost effective strategy for the Suite Owner.
But each year we also work as hard as possible to rent the same suite to new Tenants, because we don’t know if the Tenant will renew their lease until it’s too late.

We accomplish these two tasks by splitting our efforts and developing two marketing strategies - one focused on renewing Tenants and the other focused on securing new Tenants.

Our Marketing Strategies

As previously stated, marketing is not as simple as posting an ad or making a sign. Instead we must rely on several tools to complete our marketing efforts. Read below to review of the tools our office will commonly use when marketing to both current Tenants and new rental leads.

The Rental Website

Our website is a key part to our marketing strategies with all leads funnelling to this single source.
Click Here to view our website
Click Here to view where rental leads are collected

All our of our online marketing tools will redirect leads to these webpages. This includes Google, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Wechat, Kijiji (and various similar sites), blogs, and much more.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Like most modern companies dealing heavily in sales and customer relations, our office relies on a web-based CRM. This software will allow our office to track incoming rental leads, current tenants, communication with owners, and much more.

Through the CRM we are able to track incoming leads, identify their personal needs, track their email opens and responses, identify and track important marketing data points, and provide a hands-on line of communication between our team and the Tenant during their rental journey.

Online / Social Media Marketing

Online / social media marketing is one of the most important marketing types all modern rental companies should understand. Rather than paying for passive ads on pages like Kijiji, we can instead target our ideal rental candidate through social media.

By using the data we collect each year through our CRM, our office can work to identify the specific demographics of our ideal rental candidates. We understand where they live, the region we should post ads, the ideal age group, their interests, their habits, and much more. We can then use social media to target these ideal renters, encourage them to visit the website, and then later re-target these same individuals continually.

Our office currently uses marketing services through:

  • Google Ads

  • Facebook Ads

  • Instagram Ads

  • Snapchat Ads

  • Wechat

  • Bitly

  • Mailchimp

  • Twitter

  • Kijiji (and other numerous + similar sites)

Have more questions?

We are Here to Help!