Monday, April 9, 2012

Leasing Tablet Enhancements


Brand Your Leasing Tablet™

Want your Leasing Tablet to better represent your image? Now it can! Properties wanting to add some flair to their Leasing Tablet can add a custom photo or graphic to the Leasing Tablet background. To enhance your Leasing Tablet with a custom background, contact your account manager.

Leasing Tablet™ Enhanced with Improved Offline Mode

The VaultWare Leasing Tablet has been enhanced with improved offline caching, making accessing your Leasing Tablet content more reliable when leasing staff are lacking an Internet connection. The new offline caching mode has been released to all Leasing Tablets and keeps your property photos, floorplan images and pricing & availability data* always at hand on your Apple iPad™ or Android tablet even when away from a WiFi or 3G/4G connection.

Collect Guest Cards When Offline

In addition to improved offline caching, leasing staff can now collect guest cards even when there is no available Internet connection. The Leasing Tablet will store the guest card information until the Leasing Tablet is once again launched while connected to the Internet. Once the Leasing Tablet detects that Internet connectivity has been restored, it will prompt the user to send all guest cards collected while offline.

Transform your property tours into interactive presentations, improve tour-closing ratios and be prepared for peak leasing season with the VaultWare Leasing Tablet. Schedule a demo today.

* Current pricing and availability requires using the VaultWare Reservation System in conjunction with the Leasing Tablet.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Craigslist Posting Tool enhanced, additional reporting now available

On Tuesday, January 17th, the VaultWare Craigslist Posting Tool will be enhanced with new features that will give properties additional options and flexibility when posting ads to Craigslist, as well as a new reporting function to help you monitor individual property results. View a brief video tutorial on how to use the new posting tool. Below is a summary of the enhancements:

  • Postings by Property report – A new reporting function has been added to VaultWare Tracking that gives a portfolio-wide view, by property, of your Craigslist advertising results.
  • Unit level postings – In addition to property level and unit-type level postings, you can now post ads for a specific, available unit.
  • More control over template colors – Now you can create custom color schemes to apply to your ads. You can set color schemes in the VaultWare Control Panel and select a color scheme when posting your ad.
  • Ghosting and Frequency Alerts – Configurable alerts can be set to warn when you are posting ads too frequently or not frequently enough. Be notified when an ad hasn’t received any traffic within a specified window, which may indicate that your ad has been ghosted by Craigslist.

To manage settings for the Posting Tool and get your link to the new tool, go to “Craigslist and Social Media” in the VaultWare Control Panel. Please note, beginning Tuesday, any previously used Posting Tool links you have bookmarked will no longer function and should be deleted and you should request a new link in the Control Panel to take advantage of the new functionality. If you have any questions please contact our Support department.

Zillow added to the VaultWare Distribution Network

The VaultWare Apartment Reservation System is now syndicating rental listings to Zillow as part of the Zillow Listings Feed Program. VaultWare joins the Zillow Listings Feed program as Zillow’s first source of multifamily rental listings direct from national property management companies.

Each listing VaultWare sends to Zillow represents an individual, currently available apartment. Listings from VaultWare will receive exposure to Zillow’s more than 22 million monthly visitors, more than four million of whom are currently renters. In addition to being displayed on Zillow, VaultWare rental listings will also appear on Zillow’s suite of mobile applications.

To begin advertising your available apartments on Zillow via VaultWare, select Zillow on the ILS Selection page in the VaultWare Control Panel. As always, if you have any questions please contact our Support team.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

MRI Software Announces Acquisition of VaultWare

MRI Continues to Expand Multifamily Offering Portfolio with Premier Online Leasing Provider

December 21, 2011 – Cleveland, OH – MRI Software LLC, a leading developer of innovative real estate management and investment software solutions for the global real estate industry, announced today that it has acquired Realty DataTrust Corporation, the holding company for VaultWare. Through this acquisition, MRI expands its portfolio of market-leading offerings in property management and accounting by adding a best-of-breed solution in online leasing.

VaultWare is the leading solution for consumer-focused apartment marketing and leasing for the multifamily market. The software helps property managers reach and communicate with apartment hunters online, pre-qualify prospects, and convert applicants into tenants. Additionally, applicants can check availability of apartment units and reserve specific units online, which streamlines the apartment search and leasing process. VaultWare’s versatile mobile solutions not only support mobile device compatible websites, but also enable property leasing staff to access inventory, property photos, videos, and site plans from an Apple iPad while giving tours of a property. In addition, VaultWare offers vacancy and rental rate data to apartment owners, marketing executives, and apartment brokers for business decisions.

"I am thrilled to welcome VaultWare and its valued customers to the MRI Software family," said David Post, Chief Executive Officer of MRI Software. "This acquisition will extend and strengthen our multifamily product line and will allow MRI to provide the strongest tenant lifecycle management solution on the market."

The new, combined entity will provide both MRI and VaultWare customers with many advantages. The acquisition will provide MRI’s customers with a complete, fully automated lease management solution that will be tightly integrated into MRI’s property management and accounting systems. VaultWare and its clients will benefit from MRI’s world-class client support and professional services capabilities, award-winning SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) environment, and the additional product investments possible with a larger organization. As a part of a leading software provider, VaultWare’s clients will now be able to take advantage of an expanded set of software products and related services.

Mike Mueller, Chief Executive Officer of VaultWare, commented, "The marriage of VaultWare to MRI Software completes a big part of the vision I set out for our industry 17 years ago. The rental prospect now has an end-to-end solution, combining our industry-leading reservations system and marketing tools with the superior back-end resident functionality of the MRI property management and accounting package."

About MRI Software
MRI offers business management software solutions to the global property management and investment industries as well as to corporate real estate managers. As a leading provider of real estate enterprise software applications and hosted solutions, MRI serves the global multifamily and commercial property industries, helping them improve their bottom line and maximize their returns on their diverse business portfolios. MRI leverages its 40 years in business to develop long-term successful relationships with its clients. For more information, please visit www.mrisoftware.com.

About VaultWare™
VaultWare provides consumer-centric apartment marketing and leasing solutions focused on delivering an ideal online shopping experience that results in streamlined operations, highly qualified leads and more leases. Since 2002, VaultWare has been inventing and pioneering solutions that facilitate online renter behavior, leasing activities and convenience for both renters and leasing professionals. These solutions include the multifamily industry’s preferred apartment availability and reservation system, industry-focused desktop and mobile websites, the Leasing Tablet™ touchscreen tablet leasing app and Market Comps, the only automated market survey solution with weekly pricing updates. Over 190 companies, from small property management companies to some of the largest real estate investment trusts, use VaultWare to help them effectively market their properties and efficiently lease their apartments. To learn more about VaultWare, visit the company’s website at www.VaultWare.com.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

VaultWare Reservation System Enhanced to Improve Customer Experience

Enhancements to reservation process increases conversions, reduces lost opportunities

The VaultWare Reservation System has been updated to improve your customer’s experience when a specific floorplan has limited or no availability. These enhancements to the reservation process will:


Reduce lost opportunities when availability is limited
  • Provide a more intuitive availability interface that further reduces the number of clicks it takes to find an available apartment that fits the renter’s needs.
  • Streamline the Availability Alerts sign up process.
  • Raise the sense of urgency to take action immediately and reserve an apartment before
    someone else does.
  • Reduce lost sales opportunities when a floorplan is unavailable and increase the likelihood that an interested renter will reserve a comparable apartment from you, and not your competitor!

Unlike rudimentary reservation systems, VaultWare proactively monitors your property’s current availability and alters the reservation process to increase the likelihood that an interested renter will reserve an apartment. Rather than turn away a potential customer when a particular floorplan is lacking available inventory, VaultWare gives you the option to offer a self-service automated waitlist option to your customers so lost sales opportunities are minimized.

Similar usability improvements have also been made to the VaultWare Mobile Reservation System including a newly designed interface for apartment shoppers using tablet devices. Contact us today to learn more about the VaultWare Apartment Reservation System.

Mobile Apartment Reservation System Now Optimized for Tablets

Provide an Ideal Shopping Experience to Apartment Hunters Using Tablet Devices

As adoption of mobile tablet devices like Apple’s iPad continues at unprecedented rates – with no signs of slowing – the user experience that you provide your prospective residents must adapt to ensure their researching and buying process can progress unhindered. To guarantee an ideal apartment shopping experience, regardless of device type or size, it’s imperative that your website distinguishes between desktop, mobile and tablet devices and serves an appropriate and functional user interface.


Tablet Optimized Apartment Reservation System from VaultWare

Property managers utilizing the VaultWare Mobile Reservation System will now automatically deliver an optimal user experience to apartment hunters using mobile tablet devices. The new tablet reservation system maintains the tap-friendly interface that VaultWare’s Mobile Reservation System provides, while taking advantage of the larger screen sizes found in tablet devices to present your property’s currently available apartment inventory in a clean and easy-to-use manner that encourages conversion of site visitors into
highly-qualified reservations for specific apartments.

And if your property also uses VaultWare Mobile Websites, your mobile website is now optimized for tablet devices! Contact VaultWare today for a demo of the VaultWare Mobile Apartment Marketing System with tablet device compatibility.

VaultWare Mobile Websites Expands Your Mobile Reach to Tablet Users

Showcase Your Property to Shoppers Using Tablet Devices

VaultWare’s Mobile Website solution today began delivering a uniquely optimized property website experience to renters searching for an apartment on a tablet device like Apple’s iPad, Motorola’s Xoom or any of the Android-based tablets. Previously property managers had to choose between serving tablet users the desktop or mobile version of their mobile website.


VaultWare's Mobile Websites Optimized for Tablet Devices

"We found that neither the desktop nor the mobile version delivered an ideal online apartment hunting experience to tablet users,” said Mike Cornell, President of VaultWare. “Desktop versions often utilize Flash elements that are incompatible with the iPad and even if a desktop site is designed for a tablet device’s similar screen size, content may have looked smaller and unreadable on tablets. Alternately, choosing to display the property’s mobile optimized website meant limiting the user’s experience
even though more screen real estate was available."

Now with VaultWare’s Mobile Websites optimized for tablet, properties can ensure their current and potential residents receive the best experience, regardless of whether the user is on a desktop, mobile or tablet device! Contact us today to get started delivering an ideal apartment shopping experience to your website users no matter when, where or how they find you!

Friday, September 9, 2011

VaultWare Market Comps to Include Nearly 40,000 Apartment Communities with Addition of ForRent.com Data

For Rent Media Solutions becomes data provider to apartment industry’s premier weekly rental rate reporting and trending tool.

Scottsdale, AZ,  September 9, 2011 -- VaultWare and For Rent Media Solutions, a leading industry provider of apartment searches nationwide and operator of ForRent.com, today announced an agreement to integrate rental rate data from ForRent.com property listings into the VaultWare Market Comps tool. The inclusion of ForRent.com data with the existing data providers Rent.com and VaultWare increases the comprehensiveness of the multifamily industry’s source for up-to-date apartment rent and trending data by more than 35%. The combined data sources enable competitive rents to be available weekly for nearly 40,000 apartment communities.

VaultWare Market Comps is a convenient research tool for property managers that eliminates the time-consuming practice of calling around for competitor’s current rental rates and assists with revenue management efforts by validating pricing against a customized competitive market, more immediate identification of market trends and variations to competitors and improved timeliness and accuracy of competitive data. Premium features are also available to provide more detailed reporting options, historical data and alert capabilities.

Property managers can receive value-added benefits, such as free levels of access or complimentary reports, just for being an active customer of VaultWare, Rent.com and/or ForRent.com.

"A majority of the apartment industry prices rental rates manually so this tool gives managers a great way of benchmarking their rents against their peer group automatically," said Mike Mueller, CEO of VaultWare. "With rents rising in almost every market, quarterly or even monthly surveys can’t keep up in a changing environment.”

Terry Slattery, President of For Rent Media Solutions commented, "By contributing our data weekly we enable our advertising customers to maximize their gross rental income potential over the course of the year because they can move faster than their competitors. As revenue management tools become more commonplace in our industry we’re excited to help pioneer this service for all of our owners and managers.

For more information about VaultWare Market Comps, contact VaultWare at info@vaultware.com or (480) 905-3670 option 2.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

For Rent Media Solutions™ Launches VaultWare Places - Nationwide rollout of new feature

NORFOLK, Va. – (June 22, 2011) – For Rent Media Solutions™, a leading resource for apartment searches nationwide and operator of ForRent.com®, a division of Dominion Enterprises, has seen success through the exclusive partnership with VaultWare, an online marketing and leasing solution provider for the multifamily housing industry. This collaboration’s recently introduced version of the VaultWare Places product will now be rolled out to a nationwide audience.

The nationwide product rollout directly follows the great success of its May 2, 2011 test market launch. Initial markets to receive their free website were Columbus, Kansas City, San Diego and San Francisco. Brock MacLean, senior vice president of For Rent Media Solutions, said: “The success of VaultWare Places in our test markets proves that this progressive product will be a great asset to ForRent.com customers.”

VaultWare Places provides a free website service to properties that are currently paying for a website, as well as aids those that do not have a site. This product will automatically update the content and pricing information from a ForRent.com listing to the new customer site. This simple application will be introduced to For Rent customers through their account executives, who will direct them to a personalized VaultWare Places console.

“VaultWare Places enables all ForRent.com properties to have their own personalized website through a very simple process,” said VaultWare president Mike Cornell. “These websites can be easily customized, including linking to a Facebook page or Twitter account, choosing from a variety of designs, uploading photos and more. Properties can also add enhancements including establishing a new domain name or making the site mobile friendly.”

Monday, May 2, 2011

For Rent Media Solutions Introduces Exclusive VaultWare Places Partnership

New feature by VaultWare provides free websites for apartment communities

Watch this short video and see how VaultWare and ForRent are shaking up apartment internet marketing!

NORFOLK, Va.—(May 2, 2011)—For Rent Media Solutions™, a leading resource for apartment searches nationwide and operator of ForRent.com®, a division of Dominion Enterprises, today announced an exclusive partnership with VaultWare™,  an online marketing and leasing solution provider for the multifamily housing industry. The integration between For Rent Media Solutions and VaultWare’s free website solution, VaultWare Places, will provide most existing For Rent customers with a free of charge, self-service website beginning May 2, 2011. The launch markets to receive their free website will be Columbus, Kansas City, San Diego and San Francisco.

In these tough economic times, this new partnership provides a free service to those properties that are currently paying for a website, as well as aid those that do not have a site. VaultWare Places will automatically update the content and pricing information from a ForRent.com listing to the new customer site. For Rent Media Solutions President, Terry Slattery, said: “We understand that professionals in the multifamily housing industry are stretching their budgets and resources to the limit. This product automatically updates changes our customers make on ForRent.com to their VaultWare Places website, saving them time and money. This free website is yet another form of effective online presence making it easier for our customer’s property to be seen by prospective renters.”

Creating a VaultWare Places website will be simple for For Rent customers. For Rent customers will be introduced to VaultWare Places through their account executives, who will direct them to the VaultWare Places console for ForRent.com customers. Interested customers can opt-in by logging in with credentials provided by the account executive, and verifying some basic account information. The For Rent template is then automatically populated with all of the information from the coinciding ForRent.com listing.

“This is a great opportunity for small owners and fee managers that are budget constrained to instantly create a powerful online presence. There will no longer be any excuses for not having a property website!” said Mike Mueller, CEO of VaultWare. “With just a few clicks a website can be up and running thanks to the integration with ForRent.com. With a few more clicks you can even have a unique and marketable web address powered by GoDaddy!”

About For Rent Media Solutions™

Founded in 1982 as For Rent Magazine®, For Rent Media Solutions™ is headquartered in Norfolk, Va., and provides multi-family housing solutions for apartment seekers, property/apartment managers and owners through integrated marketing techniques, including print and Internet, mobile media, custom video, and social media solutions. For Rent Media Solutions operates For Rent Magazine, as well as Apartamentos Para Rentar®, and publishes 100 magazines covering more than 190 markets nationwide, including After 55™ Housing & Resource Guide, and ForRent.com™-The Magazine. For Rent Media Solutions operates four additional websites: ForRent.com®, SeniorOutlook.com™, CorporateHousing.com®, and ParaRentar.com™. Visit ForRent.com for more, or visit us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn.

About Dominion Enterprises

Dominion Enterprises is a leading marketing services company serving the automotive, enthusiast and commercial vehicle, real estate, apartment rental, and employment industries. The company’s businesses provide a comprehensive suite of technology-based marketing solutions including Internet advertising, lead generation, CRM, website design and hosting, and data management services. The company has more than 40 market-leading websites reaching more than 17.6 million unique visitors monthly, and more than 280 magazines with a weekly circulation of 2.4 million. Headquartered in Norfolk, Va., the company has 4,900 employees in more than 186 offices nationwide. For more information, visit www.dominionenterprises.com.

About VaultWare™

VaultWare is located in Scottsdale, Arizona and offers online marketing and leasing solutions for the multifamily housing industry, including its flagship product, the VaultWare Apartment Reservation System. VaultWare helps property managers effectively market their properties and available apartments on the web making it easy for consumers to find, reserve and instantly pre-qualify for apartments online and increase a property’s efficiency and occupancy rates by delivering apartment management companies the highest-qualified prospects possible. Over 150 management companies throughout the United States, from small property management companies to some of the country’s largest real estate investment trusts, use the award-winning VaultWare Apartment Marketing and Leasing Suite. To learn more about VaultWare, visit the company’s website at www.VaultWare.com.