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What Apartment Renters Want

September 23, 2011

In the apartment industry it is every single person’s duty, from the apartment developers all the way down to the maintenance workers, to figure out what the renters want. Apartment living is overall a very transient lifestyle and very rarely will you meet someone that has lived in the same apartment for a large number of years. People move for all sorts of reasons, whether it’s just for a change a scenery, a job relocation, or in order to cut back on some costs, individuals that live in apartments will always move more than home dwellers.

Ultimately apartment employees do not want residents to move, because that leads to numerous amounts of vacants, which causes lack of income and lower NOI. Therefore, the million dollar question to answer becomes what renters want. Apartments.com conducts a survey a few times a year to get inside the mind of the apartment renter to figure out what exactly it is that people are looking for. The results of the survey are always interesting to analyze, because they will change depending upon the time of the year. One of the more recent surveys comes from February of 2011 and gives some great insight into what renters are looking for right now. Here are some highlights from the 1,800 individuals polled:

-28.8% were moving to relocate for employment opportunities
-20.3% of those that previously owned a home are moving, because renting is more affordable
-26.3% are searching 1-2 months in advance of their desired move-in date
-48.3% said cost was the most important search criteria
-The top three resources people were using to search for their apartment are all online resources

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