Context
Woodson Development is a real estate development business in College Station, Texas. Its project during the engagement was Verde Row, a mixed-use building close to the Texas A&M campus and the Northgate district, with commercial space at street level and apartments above it. The residents it will serve are the students and young renters who fill the blocks around campus, a market where leases are signed months ahead of move-in and where a handful of purpose-built communities compete for the same academic year.
That market was in the middle of a build-out while Verde Row was going up. Newer developments near campus were advertising resort-style amenity packages, furnished units, and rent that bundled water and internet, and most of them ran active Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok accounts aimed at students. Pre-leasing for the coming term was already well underway across the area before Verde Row had opened or posted anything of its own.
Challenge
Woodson Development was building Verde Row, a mixed-use property near the Texas A&M campus with commercial space on the ground floor and apartments above. The building was still under construction, so the business had no leasing history, no residents, and no online presence to learn from, while nearby student housing communities were already pre-leasing for the coming academic year. Before leasing began, the business wanted to understand what those communities offered, how they priced and marketed themselves, and where an amenity package and a price point would place Verde Row against them. It also wanted a view of how competitors used social media, and the first part of the work had to be ready on a short turnaround.
How the team worked
The engagement was scoped in two parts before any research began, with the competitor sheet first and the social media work second, so that the second part could build on the same set of communities. The team agreed on the fields to collect for every competitor, split the properties among its members, and met regularly to reconcile what each had found and to keep the definitions consistent from one row to the next.
The first part assembled a competitor spreadsheet for the apartment communities closest to Verde Row, gathering furnishings, rates, distance to campus, pre-leasing progress, amenities, and included utilities for each. Reading across that sheet, the team found that the communities leasing fastest tended to offer the most amenities at average or slightly above-average prices, included water and wifi, came furnished, and kept a fitness center open around the clock. Distance to campus mattered less than the perks a community offered.
The second part turned to social media. The team documented each competitor's channels, follower counts, posting timelines, and the features they advertised, then plotted that activity against pre-leasing. Raw post counts and page likes showed no meaningful pattern, but posting frequency did, and giveaway posts and general leasing advertisements drew far more engagement than event posts.
To make the comparison fair, the team counted posts by category over the same recent window for every account, separating giveaways, events, and general leasing advertisements, and worked in average engagement per post rather than totals so that a community with a longer history did not look stronger simply for having posted more. Those categories became the basis of the recommendation to post three to five times a week, focused on amenities and giveaways, so that Verde Row would be familiar to students by the time they started looking for housing.
Workstreams
- Built a competitor comparison of eight apartment communities near campus, covering furnishings, rates, distance to campus, pre-leasing progress, amenities, and whether utilities, water, and wifi were included in rent.
- Identified the features shared by the communities with the strongest pre-leasing, and how price and distance figured into those results.
- Audited the social media presence of competing communities across Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, recording active channels, followers, posting cadence, and advertised features.
- Charted post counts, page likes, and posting frequency against pre-leasing to test which kinds of social activity actually tracked with leasing.
- Compared engagement across giveaway posts, event posts, and general leasing advertisements to see which content earned the most response.
- Recommended a posting cadence and content mix for establishing Verde Row's online presence before the property opened.
What the team found
- The communities pre-leasing fastest were not the cheapest ones: they paired the widest amenity sets with average or slightly above-average prices.
- Distance to campus separated the communities far less than expected, and the perks a community included tracked with pre-leasing more closely than location did.
- Furnished units, water and internet folded into rent, and fitness space open around the clock recurred together among the strongest performers.
- Raw social media volume, whether counted as posts published or page likes accumulated, showed no meaningful relationship to how well a community was pre-leasing.
- How regularly a community posted about leasing did move with pre-leasing, suggesting repeated visibility in a student's feed matters more than sheer output.
- Presence across the set was uneven: some communities posted several times a week on multiple platforms while others had gone quiet or kept no accounts at all.
What the client received
- Competitive analysis spreadsheet covering eight nearby apartment communities
- Competitor profiles recording furnishings, rates, distance to campus, amenities, and what rent includes
- Social media inventory of each competitor's channels, posting timelines, and advertised features
- Engagement charts plotting posting activity and content type against pre-leasing
- Social media analysis document explaining each chart and what it showed
- Written final deliverable with competitor findings and social media recommendations
- Final presentation deck walking through both parts of the analysis
Outcome
Woodson Development now has a side-by-side view of the communities Verde Row will compete with, a clear picture of which features and price positions matter most to pre-leasing, and a social media approach grounded in what competitors' audiences actually respond to. It can decide on an amenity package and a price point knowing where each choice would place the property against the rest of the market, and it has a defined starting point for building its online presence before opening, with amenities and giveaways rather than events at the center of its content.
Recommendations
- Build the amenity package around what the fastest-leasing communities treat as standard: furnished units, water and internet included in rent, and fitness space open around the clock.
- Set rent at or slightly above the market average rather than competing on the lowest price, since amenities rather than price tracked with pre-leasing across the set.
- Treat proximity to campus as a secondary selling point and lead with what residents get inside the building, because distance separated the communities least.
- Establish a consistent Instagram presence, mirrored on Facebook, and post three to five times a week rather than in occasional bursts of activity.
- Center the content on amenities and giveaways, the two categories that earned the most engagement, and use event posts sparingly since they earned the least.
- Begin posting well before the leasing term opens so that students already recognize the property by the time they start looking for housing.
Next steps
- The client was handed a competitor spreadsheet built so every field can be refreshed as rates, amenities, and pre-leasing shift through later leasing cycles.
- The client was handed a social media audit with each chart and the reasoning behind it, so the posting plan can be retested as new competitor activity appears.
- The client was handed a posting cadence and content mix it can put in place before Verde Row opens, along with the content categories that performed best nearby.
- The client was handed a written deliverable and a final presentation that carry the competitor findings and the social media recommendations in one place.