Luxury is an Experience
There is no such thing as luxury apartment living in Orlando, Florida. New York is a different story. Housing is so expensive in New York that true luxury apartment rental is a real market. In Orlando, housing is much more affordable, so more people own homes. Those who rent apartments in Orlando due so mostly because they cannot afford to purchase a home because they are students, recently graduated and just starting out in their careers, or just can't afford to make the transition from renting to buying.
For a number of very complicated reasons, I find myself still renting. I'm not young , and I'm not just starting out in my career, but life threw me a few curves the past few years that prevented me from being a homeowner. I came very close to purchasing a home last year, but I chickened out. Home prices have come down from the insanity of a couple of years ago, but I still feel that the market is overpriced, and I didn't want to buy a house just to buy a house. So, I continue to rent. I am in the process of looking for a house to rent because living in a large Orlando apartment complex is a miserable existance.
Every place I have lived since moving to Florida years ago has billed itself as luxury. To be fair, the complex where I live now looks very nice on the outside, but on the inside it is a hellhole. Apartment complexes have only one interest: leasing. They have no interest in customer service. Every cent they spend on customer service is an expense that adds nothing to the bottom line. Everything, from way the clubhouse/leasing center is designed to choice of kitchen cabinets in the apartments, is geared to turning a prospective into a renter. To that end, the word 'luxury' is liberally used in marketing materials, but please remember that 'luxury' is more about service than materials.
If you were to visit my apartment, I could take you on a tour of the beautiful club house. There you would find a state-of-the-art fitness center, pool table, business center, and home theater. On the way to my apartment, you would pass by the shimmering waters of the impressive swimming pool, and once at my place, you would be impressed by the granite kitchen island, brushed aluminum light fixtures, crown molding, and spa bathtub. All signs would point towards luxury. What you wouldn't see is the paper-thin walls that allow every intimate detail of your neighbors lives seep through. When my upstairs neighbors came home from work you could experience the way their footfalls echo in the hollow space between the floors. It would not be long before you realized that the developer of this complex slapped some lipstick on a pig and sold it as luxury bacon.
Luxury is not granite counter tops. Luxury is defined by the deep down quality of a product and the service that you receive. Once you sign the lease, you have gone from a potential sale, to a sale, to a liability to the management company. Unlike a hotel, where the goal is to make sure that the customer leaves with a positive attitude toward the brand which will result in future revenue, apartments don't care about your experience. Apartment dwellers are transient, and once you move out you're never coming back anyway, so they don't care. This is the unfortunate reality of apartment living in Orlando, and I hope to soon be free of it.
I will leave you with a story of true luxury:
My mom and dad own a 10 year old Lexus ES300. The ES300 is essentially a fancy Toyota Camry, and after 10 years and over 120,000 miles in the Florida sun it is a bit rough around the edges but still an excellent car. A couple of months back the car was repeatedly having trouble starting. My mom had the car serviced locally in Vero Beach multiple times, but the problem persisted. I told my mother that she should bring it to the Lexus dealer for service, but she hating making the trip. The closest Lexus dealer is in Melbourne, a 40 mile drive! I told her to call Lexus and find out if they would pick up the car and give her a loaner while they serviced it. She thought I was crazy. There was no way they would drop off a loaner, pick up the car, service it, and return it she insisted, but because she loves me, she made the call anyway. Lexus did just as I thought they would. A man from Lexus drown down from Melbourne to Vero Beach in a brand new ES350, dropped off the car as a loaner, drove my mom's car back to the dealership, serviced it and returned it a few days later. As it turns out, the local service shop put the wrong type of battery in the car which was killing the alternator. Lexus replaced the battery and that solved the problem. I think it cost about $100 to fix the car. Lexus wound up losing money on the deal, but they cemented their brand as the ultimate in luxury in our family. It didn't matter that my mom's car was the lowest cost entry-level Lexus that one could buy and that it was old, it was still a Lexus. This was a truly luxurious experience, and Lexus did it without granite coutners or crown molding.
January 18th, 2010 - 22:25
I don’t want to sound cold here but…the Lexus dealer in Melbourne did what they did not because of a sense of service, although that might have been a small part of it. Rather, they saw it as an opportunity to have a current Lexus customer with liquid money (retirees) drive a brand new ES350 for a few days and, maybe, fall in love with it. After the 300 is returned to your parents, there is the inevitable “Gee, that other car was REALLY nice, and this one is good but…how much was that other one?” I’m surprised the dealer didn’t send the car over with some champagne, flowers and a stripper.
Truth is, that $100 battery would have been the cheapest part the guy ever sold had your parents done what so many people do and buy a new car after it’s loaned to them. I don’t want to sound negative on the thing but dealers are dealers and that makes them eager to make a buck. Especially these days, particularly in hard hit Florida.
I ran into a similar situation at the Honda dealer recently. Had to get a exhaust coupling replaced on my ’01 Civic. The service dude saw I had 213,000 miles on it. Surprised, he said I may want to consider looking around the showroom. I asked him how much is the most expensive thing to fix on my car. He said, usually the transmission, around $2k.
“Is that less than your cheapest car?” I asked.
“Of course,” he said.
“Well, there’s my answer then,” and I walked away.
Fact is, car dealers make money doing what they do and selling a higher market car, like a Lexus, requires spending time and money to make it happen.
Now, your apt is a similar but different matter. You are absolutely right that the whole compound is designed to make you sign the lease. After that, they could care less about you or your petty issues like wall thickness or water temp. In fact, they would prefer you sign and leave after a year, that way they can jack up the rent by a larger percent than if you just stayed there.
It’s all a game rigged against the customer. Be aware of this and you can maybe turn it to your advantage. Or, you could just not play the game and drive around in a nine year old car with almost a quarter million miles on it and expect it to provide another quarter million.
What’s your opinion? We’d like to know.
D
January 18th, 2010 - 22:34
Exactly! (Nice circa 1985 WPIX Channel Eleven reference!). Don’t get me wrong, I understand that Lexus (and every other corporation) does what it does out of a motivation to make profit. I have no issue with that. The thing is that Lexus sells itself as a luxury brand, and, in my opinion, it delivers on that promise. My folks could have purchased a top of the line Camry for less money, but there is no way the Toyota dealers is going to service them in the same manner. BTW, my mom liked the new ES350, and it came with a new battery included, but she opted to just purchase a new battery for her old ES300 for a savings of $35950.00.
Driveshaft, if that is your real name, I really appreciate your insightful comments.