Yardi’s Revenue Management for Multifamily

02.18.2009 by Don Wood.

Multifamily revenue management has been a hot topic of late. There are products on the market that will cost a fair amount and help you to optimize your pricing. Often these products have a proprietary calculation method that gives you the recommended rental price for a unit. If you have Yardi Voyager 6.0 you already have this feature available to you.

Revenue Management comes free with Yardi Voyager 6.0. Granted, it is not as feature rich as other products such as RealPage’s Yieldstar but it is included in your base application.

What can you do with Yardi Revenue Management?
The revenue Management functions include market surveys and pricing models.

• Market Surveys
  • Subject property
  • Comparison properties
  • Comparison groups
  • Collect market survey data
• Pricing Models
  • Create pricing models
  • Preview model rents
  • Calculate new market rents
  • Review and post new market rents

You already collect market surveys, right?
You are probably already collecting market survey data and entering the information on a spreadsheet or a paper form. With this tool you just enter that data into Voyager. The module will then maintain the information and allow you to use it for analysis and reporting. You can capture data such as property name, number of units, percent occupied, rents, unit types, amenities, etc.

The market survey reports list the data and includes graphs. The standard reports include market survey and rent comparables, effective rent trends, and comparable ratings. Imagine how impressed your boss will be when you present a report with graphs showing the valuable data you have gathered!

Flexible Pricing Models
Voyager allows the user to create pricing models. Instead of using a proprietary black box methodology, Yardi puts you in control. The pricing model is basically a set of rules and measurements that define how new market rents are calculated. There are pricing factors that you can weigh and rate according to your particular market.

Once you have run the pricing model, Voyager will provide a suggested market rent that you can accept or adjust before posting it to the system.

If you have Voyager 6, then you really should look at this functionality. It is easy to use and oft overlooked. I suspect that if more people use this feature and begin asking for enhancements, Yardi will make it even better.

Don Wood is a PMP with over 25 years of experience in project management, business process improvement, and information technology for the real estate industry. Please visit www.dbrw.com for more information.

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