Some apartment owners are facing increasing vacancy rates and are having trouble filling them quickly given the restrictions on showing units and health and safety requirements. AppFolio experts recommend that landlords employ new strategies to fill vacancies faster, and among the top method is a cross-sell strategy. Cross-sell strategies showcase more available apartment inventory, and can help owners fill vacancies faster.

"If a prospective renter comes to an owner or property management team with an inquiry on an apartment, why speak only to that apartment when you likely have other vacant units that have similar qualities that can be cross sold to prospects? The whole idea behind cross selling is that it enables teams to highlight more of their inventory—the more choices a prospect has, the more likely they are to make a decision and actually convert," Stacy Holden, industry principal and director at AppFolio, tells GlobeSt.com.

A cross sell strategy can begin at the initial inquiry. "AI leasing assistants, like Lisa, can actually do the cross selling at this stage on behalf of property management teams, automatically sharing with prospects units that are similar to the ones they inquire about initially," says Holden. "Relying on technology to do some of the cross selling is important when trying to fill vacancies quickly, as, with AI, it occurs immediately, in the very first interaction with a prospect."