As we welcomed 2024, the Apartments.com team focused on addressing two major hurdles for property owners: navigating taxes and simplifying rent collection. Our first quarter mission was to make both processes easier and less stressful. We revamped the website experience for getting your listing online, optimizing user experience – especially on mobile – and adding ‘save’ points along the way. We also made it easier to get insights into other rentals’ pricing to help inform you about the market when setting your rental price. There are some big changes to share, so let’s get right to it.
E-Delivery for 1099-K Forms
Released on January 31, 2024, just in time for tax season, PDF 1099-K forms are available for download directly within your account when applicable. While these can be used for reporting rental income, you may also be interested in our expenses tool for tracking costs which map directly to reportable IRS categories.
March Brought Apple Pay and More
March 13, 2024, saw several big changes to Rental Tools. Your renters now have another way to pay, we’ve retooled rent comps, and you have access to a new dashboard. Here’s a closer look at each feature:
Apple Pay
Did you know that nearly three-quarters of renters who visit Apartments.com every month to pay their rent do so via their mobile device? Back in 2023, we started accepting Google Pay payments. Now, our list of accepted payment methods has an exciting new entry: Apple Pay! Your renters can choose to make their rent payments using Apple Pay from Safari version 17+ on their iOS or macOS devices. It’s easier than ever for your renters to pay, and they’ll appreciate the additional personal data protection from Apple.
New Dashboard
The Rental Manager View homepage has a whole new look, making it even easier to use. The first change replaced the tile links with a property portfolio overview. Now, you can see insights per tool grouped by property. Next, we added badge indicators to let you know when an area might need some extra attention. This helps make sure you don’t miss an important notification.
Rent Comp Reports
The Apartments.com rent comps report will provide you with a personalized rent rate analysis of your property and the local market. We look at all properties, even those not currently advertising on Apartments.com. After adding your property, click on “View rent comps report” to receive your detailed rent comparable analysis. This valuable information will help you set a competitive rental rate and ensure you’re getting the most out of your rental properties.
Q1 Honorable Mentions
While we’re excited to bring you all the new and updated features highlighted above, there are a few smaller changes we think you’ll appreciate, as well. While they might not be as fancy, they’re definitely worth mentioning. Here are some additional changes we’ve made to the site in Q1:
No More Odd Characters
We updated the money entry fields on our forms to be numbers only. Now, when renters enter a number from a mobile device, the number keyboard shows by default. This helps prevent the entry of an unexpected letter. After all, no one can pay $1,7b0 for rent!
New Year, New Income Statement
Welcome to a brand-new year of income possibilities! To keep pace with the times, we've refreshed the Income Statement report page by including "2024" as an available option in the timeframe selection.
Add Your Property from within Rental Manager View
We noticed that some potential landlords looking around and “kicking the tires” on our authenticated user experience found themselves within Renter View because they hadn’t yet added a property to their user account. To fix this, we re-ordered the steps in our onboarding flow. Now, you can sign up and sign in, then later add your property from within the Rental Manager portal.
More Updates Are on the Way!
We hope you’ll take some time and explore the site, talk to your renters about the addition of Apple Pay, conclude tax season with ease and start planning for 2025, and download a rent comps report just in time for rental turnover season. As we wrap up Q1, we’re turning our attention to the next quarter. We have some exciting things planned, so be on the lookout for our Q2 update. Until then, check out our other articles in Rental Manager Resources. You can also visit our Help Center or reach out to the customer support team to get answers to any questions you may have.
