When you hear about a new apartment community, you probably think “up” — as in several stories up. You envision elevators, packed parking garages and neighbors above and below.

Redwood Living is turning that notion of multifamily living on its side — literally.

Instead of building up, Redwood is building horizontally. The company believes in doing one thing really well, and that means developing, leasing and managing single-story apartment homes. They go one step beyond creating a community and instead focus on cultivating an entire neighborhood from the ground up.

By the end of the year, Redwood is slated to have over 8,440 apartments — twice the number they had in June 2015 — most of which are in various stages of lease-up. In the next 24 months, the Cleveland-based company projects it will double in size again.

'We have a really solid product and provide distinctive single story apartment homes for our residents,” said Jessica VanGelder, director of property operations at Redwood Living. “Our apartment homes are two-bed, two-bath, with a den and a two-car garage. When you live at a Redwood Community you don’t have neighbors above or below you for optimal peace and quiet. But, you have a neighborhood. There are sidewalks. You see and know your neighbors.”

We sat down with Jessica, a 15-year industry veteran who oversees all of Redwood’s regional managers as well as the day-to-day operations of the properties and ILSs, to learn more about marketing her product and attracting customers to Redwood’s neighborhoods. Here’s what she had to say.

Zillow: Can you tell us about your portfolio? You are growing incredibly fast.

Jessica:  We have 42 communities that are in various stages of lease-up right now, in addition to our stabilized properties. Today’s pipeline includes properties in South Carolina, Ohio, Michigan and Indiana, and we have a couple of communities opening in Iowa soon.

Zillow: That is a lot of lease-ups. Talk us through your marketing strategy, from construction to move-in.

Jessica: I start with a five-month plan. When we’re five months away from being ready for move-ins, the first thing we do is engage Zillow. We also put up a temporary sign at the lease-up with our call center’s number. Then, about 120 days out, we put together our centralized leasing center. Depending on how much activity a site is getting, about 90 days out, I’ll decide whether or not to use another ILS or if I need to add anything else.

We used to set up a trailer and encourage the drive-bys to come in and look at the dirt. But we determined it works better to set up a temporary leasing office at a nearby community. Our models are really big for us. We have people pull into the garage and come inside so they can experience what living in a Redwood apartment would feel like. Our in-house marketing team also uses social media to attract attention for our communities.

Zillow: What does success look like for you in a lease-up?

Jessica: In a standard multifamily product, when the construction of the building is complete, you get the entire community ready to go on the same day. With ours, we get four to eight apartment homes ready, and then in another couple of months, we’ll get another four to eight ready for occupancy. It’s a moving target with us, and it’s important to have a strong relationship with our builders. My goal is to have the homes occupied within 14 days after we get the certificate of occupancy, and we aim to complete the lease-ups within 9-12 months, typically.

Overall, we like our communities to stay at 95 percent occupancy. We used to aim for 100 percent, but believe that when you’re at 100 percent, you don’t have a great opportunity to increase your rent, or it can mean that you’re not charging enough rent. We are willing to have some vacancy to be able to push rents where it makes sense. That includes renewals.

Zillow: Why is advertising on Zillow your first step?

Jessica: Zillow works well for us because our biggest competitor is single-family homes — both rentals and for-sale homes — so we’re on there with our true competitors. Zillow is a great partner because of its product. We recently added the Boost product to seven or eight sites, and my average click-through rate is nearly 2.5 percent. Anything over 1.5 percent is good. Traffic is something we watch very closely. We use a unique phone number and Max Leases to track our leads. The most important thing for me is that the leads are good quality. Our lease-to-leads percentage is good.

Zillow: Tell us about how you create that “neighborhood” feeling and keep residents happy.

Jessica: We’re extremely pet friendly. Residents can have up to three pets, and we only have a breed restriction. People like that. Also, because of our design, there is a sense of neighborhood. There are sidewalks, and everyone can meet when they go to the mailbox. People are outside, walking along the trails. There are trails within and around the perimeter of the community, as well as ponds and a gazebo. From the start, it’s set up to be a neighborhood. This year, we are going back to the basics and really focusing on resident engagement. In our minds, it’s our theme for everything. We held resident appreciation activities and recognized long-standing residents. It’s our focus in training too. We want to sit down with potential residents and ascertain their needs. It’s about building a relationship.

Zillow: How did you get started in the multifamily industry?

Jessica: A friend said I should try it out, so I decided to give it a year. I started as a community manager with 358 apartment homes and became very passionate about the industry. I was promoted from there. You’re either in this industry for life, or you don’t stay very long. And, immediately, I knew it was for me. At Redwood, my passion is fueled because I believe in the product, and LOVE the people I work with. It’s fast paced. There is high accountability, and it’s easy to set goals. There is something new every day.