What Renters Want with Jessica Fiur: 7 Property Management Lessons from Jurassic World

Have you seen Jurassic World yet? If not, get to it—the T-Rex-size blockbuster has already shattered the box office record for biggest opening weekend, beating The Avengers (oh, and if you haven’t seen it yet, there are some spoilers in this blog). And, besides the fact that it’s awesome, you can also learn some property management tips from the movie.

OK, you might think I’m writing this as an excuse to Google pictures of Chris Pratt while I’m at work. And you’d be correct. But there actually are some great property management lessons in there as well. Seven, in fact.

Give the people what they want. In Jurassic World, the writing was terrible, the acting was awful, and even with a suspension of belief about dinosaurs being brought back to life, I was not buying the fact that the female lead could run from dinosaurs—or even make it through a typical business day—while wearing 4-inch heels. But, no one is coming to the movie to see those things. They were coming to see dinosaurs eating people! And, boy, did it deliver! So, do the same—metaphorically, of course—at your community. Do your renters want a state-of-the-art gym? That’s what you should have! Do they want new appliances in their units? Well, upgrade those units, baby. If you deliver what they want, they won’t care so much about the other things.

It was hard work finding the right image for this blog, but someone had to do it. I love my job.

Reference past successes. There are tons of Easter eggs in Jurassic World that reference the original Jurassic Park, such as a character wearing a Jurassic Park shirt, that DNA cartoon guy, and B.D Wong! People love spotting these. So why not carry that over to your apartment community. You don’t have to throw in hidden clues to past events, but if you had a successful resident event, why not run it again and use pictures from the last event in your marketing? Or you can take to your social media pages and have #tbt posts featuring different residents.

Have something for everyone. The movie featured cute cuddly dinosaurs and gigantic monsters and Judy Greer and everything in between. It offered something for all of its fictional guests at the park to enjoy, as well as all the moviegoers. After all, the more people who find something they like in the movie, the more people who will go see the movie, the more money they make. And what’s good for those movie executives is good for us, am I right? Don’t just have events for one type of renter. Host happy hours, and kid movies, and food drives. Try to get everyone to feel included, so that your community becomes a home to them, which will make them want to keep renewing their leases.

But be careful combining things. The new dinosaur in Jurassic World, the Idominus Rex, was created to get everyone excited to come to the park. It included DNA from cuttlefish, frogs, and a bunch of nasty dinosaurs, all Frankensteined together to create one lethal beast that of course went on a rampage. Which was awesome to see, but of course not good for the people in the movie. So, while you should try to appeal to all your renters, you can’t do it all at once. Instead of having an event that has a poetry reading and touch football and a barbeque where you’re only cooking tofu, just try to throw the best event you can. If some people don’t like it, maybe they’ll like the next event.

Keep your eye on the bottom line, but not to your own detriment. Again, the Idominus Rex was created to attract more people to the park. But it clearly never should have existed. Or maybe they just should have kept the gate closed, like they were supposed to. But anyway, as we learned in each Jurassic Park movie, when greed gets involved, sometimes people get hurt. At your communities, make sure you’re not cutting costs at the expense of your residents’ comfort. You might have to pay a little more for upgrades now, but that will end up being cheaper than filling a vacancy later.

Don’t write someone completely off for past wrongs. The raptors in the original Jurassic Park were terrifying. But in this movie, the clever girls were given cameras (!) and were used to hunt the Idominus Rex (with varying success). So if someone applied for a unit and was turned down in the past, that doesn’t mean that they haven’t made some improvements in their lives and would now be a great resident. Maybe they fixed their credit score or got a better-paying job. You won’t know until you try.

Feature hot guys on motorcycles. I mean, obviously.

What are some some other property management tips you can learn from Jurassic World? And what was your favorite dinosaur? Mine was totally the Mosasaurus.

-Jessica Fiur, Senior Editor