By Steve Moran

I have written and talked about this problem. Others have written and talked about it. There is data that confirms that communities who post pricing get more move-ins, and yet most communities still refuse to do so. 

Here is the result of not making pricing prominent on your website:

Saturday my mom and I looked online and selected 4 houses for sale to go see in person. All of the homes online were clearly marked with the price of the house and amenities of the neighborhood. Saturday evening we discussed all of the maintenance owning a 2nd home would entail, and she decided she might be willing to consider senior living. 

Sunday morning we tried to look at senior living communities online. Almost none of the senior living communities listed the monthly price on their website and very few had their floorplans easily accessible. My mom has more than enough money to spend on a house, an apartment, or a senior living apartment/cottage home, so this is not a “she can’t afford it” issue. She simply wanted to know how much it costs before going to see it.  

I’m telling you: if you want affluent baby boomers, list your prices on your website.

List your IL apartments and cottages as if they were homes for sale if you want to compete. Clearly mark your price, what it includes, and the amenities of your community. 

Stop making people waste their time AND YOURS by requiring them to call for prices. She doesn’t want to be on your prospect list — she just wants to know how much it costs. She doesn’t need to see lifestyle photos — she wants to see pictures of the outside of the community, many photos of the units (models and unfurnished), and most of all she wants to see floorplans and pricing. 

I’m also begging you to stop requiring names and contact info on your website just to see your prices. We skipped every single website that required her info or to call in for pricing. 

By the end of the day, she said she was tired of wasting her time even looking at senior living. She was able to see floorplans, pricing, and amenities of traditional apartments. This week she will go visit several apartment communities and once she decides which one she wants she can do everything needed to rent the apartment online. 

So even though I WANTED her to choose senior living and I spent hours talking her into it. She’s going to rent a traditional apartment because it was so much easier.

This was posted by Suzanne Thomson in our Senior Living Leadership Facebook Group, where we tackle all kinds of topics like this one that are important to senior living.  

What If …

A few weeks ago, I gave the closing keynote at the Florida LeadingAge conference. The speech is subtitled Spitting in the Face of the Staffing Crisis. It is based on three core beliefs, the first of which is that there are enough older people with enough money that every single senior living community should be full and with a waiting list.  

We are not full, because we are stuck doing things the way we always have, hoping for things to be different. 

Look at these three apartment rental aggregator websites. Pricing is right there for all of you to see.

https://www.forrent.com/find/CA/metro-Sacramento/Citrus+Heights

https://www.zillow.com/citrus-heights-ca/apartments/

https://www.apartments.com/citrus-heights-ca/

If you go to individual apartment sites, you find floor plans and pricing on the top menu.

We need to be asking ourselves, “What can we make better? What do we need to do differently?”

Pricing is low-hanging fruit.