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New York-based brokerage Corcoran Group is recognized as a leader in the boutique residential for-sale market.
But the company has a strong tool offering to support agents working in the rental market, including its proprietary technology to track rentals in new developments, a suite of agent rental tools and a marketing strategy focused entirely on the rental market.
The brokerage’s chief operating officer, Gary Malin, told Inman that the strong support for the rental market is part of the firm’s overall strategy to recruit and support real estate agents, which could ultimately benefit the sales side of the business when it comes to renters. They become buyers and those rental agents decide to graduate to sales.
Gary Malin | The Corcoran Group
“We feel like we’ve always had a very big program to own the rental business, promote the rental business, and most importantly, make it easier for those who work here to jump into that platform,” Malin said. It’s on.
“So if you don’t have the systems in place to help them keep that business, maintain the business and then grow and become not only representing tenants, but also representing landlords and selling apartments and so on. Then all of a sudden, you’re putting barriers up against your agents or customers. And we’ve always felt like, ‘No, let’s have a strong base in rent, which will allow us to grow.’
Over the past few years, Corcoran has developed powerful tools to help agents and consumers navigate the rental market. Here are some key features.
Proprietary rental technology for new developments
Due in the second quarter of 2022, Corcoran has developed its own proprietary technology to track rents and sales of new development projects, allowing agents to give developers insight into which units are selling to which types of customers.
“The groups they represent [the developers] They put their properties in these systems – they’re called ‘stack plans’ – and they’re allowed to see what’s rented in the building, what’s available in the building, what the price points are, what kind of customers are coming in. week, what’s the traffic like…” Malin explained. Because again, especially if you’re renting a new building, how many apartments are we taking? It is always important to understand. At what price point in what parts? Is traffic going up or down when we change our marketing plan?”
When such a large investment is poured into a new building like Manhattan, Malin said the individuals and banks that support those projects want information about how the building will perform. The Corcoran system easily allows agents to update developers on that information.
A collection of agent rental tools
Launched in late April 2022, Corcoron’s rental tool suite includes an internal rental listing system that manages sales and features a listing database. To keep the system up-to-date, the broker has a dedicated team that sifts through thousands of rental listings from various sources to ensure all listing information is accurate for agents and their clients.
“It’s constantly updated and tweaked to make sure it’s accurate,” Malin said. “So now the agents have a database of live, good and active information that they can consistently access for potential clients.”
The system is also set up so agents can visit a new listing, gather all the information and photos they need, and instantly create a new, active rental listing on the Corcoran website within days. Agents can opt-in to find a rental leader in any geographic area they want to focus on.
Since the collection’s rental database went live three months ago, Corcoran says it has acquired about 600 new customers and more than 8,000 new leads in July.
“This system allows people to quickly capture leads and make sure they’re working in neighborhoods where they’re comfortable being productive,” Malin said. “Because it’s not only important to the agent, it’s even more important to the consumer that his or her agent is an expert in the neighborhood they want to work in.”
Rental support for new agents
When a new agent joins Corcoran, they are automatically set up on the Corcoran website to promote rental listings with Corcoran partner landlords.
They also developed a rental-specific lead generation tool that allows agents to pull rental leads from the Corcoran website. The lead generation program has helped generate about 5,000 rental leads per month for new agents so far, Corcoran said.
There is also a Rental Agent Training Team for each Corcoran office to train, coach and train new agents.
“[New agents] They feel confident because they are supported and they have someone to ask,” Malin said. “So just making sure the foundation is there in terms of training, when they first come in, and then throughout their tenure, that will help them.”
Rental marketing and market knowledge
The Corcoran Market Research Group produces monthly rental market reports for Manhattan and Brooklyn that include historical trends, vacancies, average neighborhood rents and more. The data will help arm the agents with valuable information to share with developers, landlords and consumers.
“We have people we represent, like all these developers and owners,” Malin said. “So another thing for agents is that they now have access to information and research and analysis to share with their clients. So their clients always know what’s going on in the market, because it’s not only useful to the agents and others, but sometimes it’s even more useful to the owner.”
The brokerage’s marketing team is creating rental-specific marketing campaigns with major buys in national and regional publications.
Corcoran also launched an Instagram channel specifically focused on its rental business and listings, following its January 2020 merger with New York City’s leading rental company City Habitats.
“Because Corcoran is such a big player in the rental market, we wanted to come up with really innovative and smart ways to improve the rental market,” Malin said. “We have a very large market place, so we felt we should have some rent. [Instagram] Channel will be very special.
Email Lillian Dickerson
