A few other products out there apart from YieldStar include LRO and Rent Maximizer.
It's fascinating how much goes into the pricing. It's all based on quite a few variables, ranging from availability (like you mention), competing communities in the area, lease end date optimizations (I don't want >X leases expiring in one month, since that's a lot of work for my leasing staff), time of year, and price history. And on top of this, prices can change daily.
I've had the chance to work on a revenue management product myself--and I can safely say that it's changed my perspective as a renter. There's a lot that can go into the pricing.
My roommate swears that checking the posting a few times can raise the price. Is the number of clicks/views on a posting taken into account when prices are changed daily?
No systems I've seen use that specific data point. Sadly for communities (and probably good for prospective renters), the third party sites you might find listings on (Craigslist, Apartments.com, ForRent.com, etc.) don't share that data that I've ever seen.
However, demand, which is usually a variable in the pricing equations, will definitely be generated by the lead tracking the community does, which can include: # of incoming phone calls, # of walk-ins, # of incoming emails.
tl;dr: Clicking on the ads won't do anything. Taking action and reaching out to the community can do something. And a lead is usually tracked on a unique user basis--so one person calling 50 times vs. 50 people calling once is vastly different.
It's fascinating how much goes into the pricing. It's all based on quite a few variables, ranging from availability (like you mention), competing communities in the area, lease end date optimizations (I don't want >X leases expiring in one month, since that's a lot of work for my leasing staff), time of year, and price history. And on top of this, prices can change daily.
I've had the chance to work on a revenue management product myself--and I can safely say that it's changed my perspective as a renter. There's a lot that can go into the pricing.