Onsite Insites by SatisFacts Research 2015 - 2nd Quarter | Page 4

How Neighbors
Can Ruin Your
Sense of
Community

“How many of you are looking forward to hanging out
with your neighbors this weekend?” I ask the room, an
expectant smile on my face.
In L.A., I saw 4 hands raised in a room of 300. In
Richmond, I saw 2 hands in a room of 200. In
Minneapolis, I saw 2 hands in a room of 150. In
Houston, not a single hand was raised.
This is just a small sample of the informal polls I’ve been
conducting across the country at various conferences
and client leadership meetings. And so my question to
the room after the poor show of hands is:
“Why are we convinced that our residents are any
different?”
Conventional industry wisdom and decades of budget
practices have instilled in each and every one of us that
resident events are the cornerstone of retention
strategies. Create an environment where residents can
get to know their neighbors, become friends, hang out
together, and BAM! They stay. They want to live among
their “friends.”

“Houston, we have a problem.”
When asked why a resident is not likely to renew, the
number 3 reason is: Neighbors (right behind “Rent
Increase” and “Parking”). Number 3! When asked what
management could do to improve the community,
“Better Residents,” is in the top 10. If you ask a
community what percent of residents attend resident
events (and stay more than 10 minutes), most
communities I’ve polled say around 30%, if that.
The Definition of Insanity
“Doing the same thing over again and expecting
different results.” Resident events as a retention
strategy is our industry’s definition of insanity. All data
points to the reality that residents don’t like their
neighbors and don’t want to spend time with them, and
yet we keep hyping events for people to come and meet
each other. Make it stop!
Jen Piccotti
SVP of Education and
Consulting
SatisFacts ResearchTM

Despite everything we’ve learned about residents not
being besties with their neighbors, what’s interesting is
that “Sense of Community” has the #1 greatest impact
on their perception of value received at their
community. So, if they don’t want to hang out with their
neighbors, but sense of community is critically
important, what is a team supposed to do?