From new advertising features to a vault full of cash, the Apartments.com booth at this year’s NAA Apartmentalize conference was a blast. The event, which ran from June 19 through June 21, offered multifamily professionals more tools and resources to succeed. Whether you missed the conference or just want a recap, here are the top takeaways from this year’s event.
Apartments.com reveals the latest tools and features
With a slew of new features from Apartments.com, it’s easier than ever to attract the high-quality leads you need to fill your vacancies. From new lead generation tools to pricing transparency, our new features are designed to connect high-intent renters with your communities.
Did you know that 80 percent of renters who submit an application visited Apartments.com before doing so?
Pricing transparency
Renters consistently cite price as their top consideration when searching for a new apartment. That’s why Apartments.com makes it easier for you to give renters the information they want.
With new pricing tools like the Rent Estimate calculator, renters can get a personalized estimate of their one-time and monthly expenses. The interactive tool factors in renters’ individual needs, like the cost of a specific unit and any optional fees that might apply, from storage costs to pet deposits.
That’s not all. With expanded options for displaying your pricing, you can now feature a price schedule by move-in date or lease term.
Property management company directory
Did you know that almost 90 percent of renters want to know the brand behind their apartment community? A new directory, integrated into Apartments.com, helps you build brand awareness for your management company and attract more renters to your properties.
To help them select a new home, brand-loyal renters can browse your available properties across the country. And renters who haven’t settled on a property management company yet can browse by location, seeing which companies operate in their target city.
Tour scheduling
When renters want to schedule a tour with your leasing team, there’s no need to play phone tag. Save time and energy for everyone by enabling integrated tour scheduling in your listings. That way, renters can book directly through your Apartments.com listing.
And did you know that you can enable scheduling for not just the traditional in-person guided tour but virtual and self-guided tours as well?
Streamlined applications
Any friction in the application process can lose you a potential customer. But with the new Apply Now functionality from Apartments.com, the application process is smoother and faster than ever.
Renters can go straight from your listings to your leasing portal. This saves your team time and reduces the chance of drop-offs. This useful shortcut is gaining traction among renters and advertisers. One in five leads on Apartments.com now comes in through an Apply Now button, and these leads are our highest-converting leads ever.
More ways to sync to your everyday software
There’s no need to make manual updates to your listings when information changes. Just set up your feeds to sync to your customer relationship management tools and property management software, and we’ll automate the process for you. Syncing your software to your Apartments.com listing also lets you take advantage of time-saving tools like integrated tour scheduling and Apply Now.
And the list of supported software is growing.
As of June 2024, you can now use our Apply Now tool with AppFolio, Entrata, MRI, ResMan and Yardi Rent Café. Tour scheduling on Apartments.com supports 13 separate integrations, with the latest additions of Tour24 and Yardi RentCafe. Unit-level pricing by lease term can now be synced to MRI, ResMan and Spherexx Optimize, and pricing by move-in date can be synced to Entrata and RealPage.
Coming later in the third quarter, you can experience integrated unit-level fee transparency API supported by Entrata.
These new additions join a long list of industry-leading multifamily software that’s compatible with Apartments.com.
Unit-level details
While a model unit can be helpful for reference, it’s not what renters are looking for. In fact, 99 percent of renters want to see the unit they’re actually considering, according to the latest survey from Apartments.com.
As one renter in our survey put it: “I want to see actual photos of the unit itself, not photos of another unit that looks similar.”
That’s why we’ve expanded the set of information you can display about your individual units in your Apartments.com listings.
From descriptions to applications, unit-level details help inform renters about their future apartment home. This increases your lead quality, saving your team time answering questions. The ultimate payoff? Communities with unit-level details see increases in lead-to-tour and lead-to-lease conversion rates.
Extensive marketing campaign drives renters to your properties
When renters think apartments, they think Brad Bellflower. That’s thanks to an industry-leading marketing campaign that’s reaching 90 percent of U.S. households. With 70 percent brand awareness — the industry’s highest — Apartments.com is the first place renters go to search for their new home. And that’s where they fall in love with your apartments.
This year’s conference highlighted what sets the latest campaign apart. With 20 new commercials, some especially crafted for social media, streaming platforms, and podcasts, the multimedia campaign is reaching renters where they are.
The national advertising campaign is just one of the many ways Apartments.com invests in communities like yours, reaching reach renters and driving them to your doors.
Multifamily experts share industry insights at the Learning Lounge
Whether you were looking to learn about market trends, advertising tips, or social media best practices, our booth had it all. Covering all the hottest topics in multifamily, the Apartmentology Learning Lounge featured back-to-back sessions throughout the conference.
Highlights from this year’s sessions included the outlook for apartment oversupply, ways to get better ratings and reviews, and steps for improving listing quality. Check out the full list of presentations.
Didn’t make to a presentation you wanted to see, or just looking for a refresher? Stay tuned — the sessions will be released as on-demand webinars over the next few weeks and months. To get the webinars straight in your inbox, sign up for the Apartmentology email newsletter.
One lucky winner takes home $100,000
A spectacular cash giveaway closed out the excitement of the week. Our lucky winner, Gerry Jackson of Berkshire, scored the prize: an enviable $100,000. The senior property manager was selected from thousands of entries.
Watch the special moment now:
How did it feel to win the grand prize? Gerry Jackson described himself as “shocked.”
Jeff Goldblum, of Brad Bellflower fame, joined the winner on the stage for a memorable celebration.
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