Introduction

Renters are bombarded with options when searching for a new apartment. When they visit your website, you only have seconds to engage them and convert that click to a lead. Engaging renters in the digital era requires a whole new set of digital leasing tools and strategies. When renters visit your website, they are not just searching, they are shopping online! In today’s digital era, renters are creating their shortlist and making key leasing decisions while visiting your website.

Renters expect more when shopping online today. Before scheduling a property visit, they want to explore building amenities, browse floor plans, and pre-tour their favorite apartments on the community website. In the digital era, renters demand an interactive experience that makes it easy to shop, tour, and lease online!

Renters now interact with your community more online than they do off. The modern renter prefers the convenience of a digital leasing experience and often visit only two communities before signing a new lease. Leasing teams that create a frictionless digital leasing experience at every phase of the leasing process will enjoy a tremendous competitive advantage.

In the digital era, your lease up website has become the single most important digital leasing tool. Can the typical apartment website meet the demands of today’s digital renters, offer a frictionless leasing experience, and drive results at your lease up?

Methodology

To gauge the effectiveness of the typical apartment website at driving leasing results in the digital era we studied fifty community websites created by some of the leading website providers. The websites studied were from luxury communities located in California, included more than 100 units, and were in lease up or recently stabilized. We scored each website based on the availability and effeteness of the key features required to offer a frictionless digital leasing experience. We evaluated how effective the websites were at helping renters:

We studied the major components of each website including the plan browser, unit browser, site plan, community and leasing details, amenity showcase, and neighborhood showcase. We scored the key features of each components from 1 to 10 and then averaged the score for all websites.

Browse, Tour, & Select Favorite Plans

PLAN BROWSER
One of renters first steps in searching for an apartment is browsing the available floor plans. To help renters quickly evaluate and find their favorite floor plans, apartment websites should integrate a plan overview, detailed feature list, plan diagram, interactive site plan, and digital tours of each plan, in one easy to use plan browser. We scored each website’s plan browser based on the criteria outlined in the features table to measure how easy it was for renters to quickly evaluate and find their favorite floor plans.

The typical apartment website provides a simple list of the available plans, but few of the details that renters need to appreciate and select their favorites. A floor plan diagram and the unit square footage can’t give shoppers the insight they need to evaluate the benefits of each plan and start their apartment search.

The average plan browser score was 2.26 out of 10. Of the seven criteria evaluated only one scored higher than 7 out of 10. The average score for the integration of virtual tours and detailed plan information was very low with scores of less than 1 for each of the criteria evaluated. None of the plan browsers directly integrated virtual tours into the plan browser and only two plan browsers offered links to a limited number of virtual tours. We also found that the lack of detailed plan information and limited integration with specific unit features made it difficult to quickly browse and select the most appropriate plans.

Simplify the Apartment Search and Make the Perfect Unit Easy to Find!

UNIT BROWSER
The average unit browser score was 2.75 out of 10. Realtime pricing and availability was the highest scoring feature with 9.75 points out of 10. Twenty percent of the websites integrated a more robust third-party interactive site plans to supplement the apartment search. None of the unit browsers received high scores for integrating virtual tours, detailed unit information, or search features which are critical for creating an effective digital leasing experience.

The unit browser is one of the most important elements of a community’s website. The unit browser should simplify the apartment search and help renters quicky explore units and create a short list. Incorporating easy to use filtering and sorting tools will help renters’ find the apartment with the perfect location, view, color scheme, price, and more. Specific unit information should be integrated into the unit browser along with the floor plan, digital tours, and an interactive sit plan to make the perfect apartment even easier to find.

View Unit and Plan Locations on an Interactive Site Plan!

An interactive site plan can be a powerful feature when deeply integrated with the plan and unit browser. The site plan visually showcases unit location and helps renters find the perfect apartment. Twenty-five percent of the websites integrated a more robust third-party interactive site plans to supplement the apartment search. Thirty-five percent of the websites offered no interactive site plan, while forty percent included a site plan created by the website developer. The features and the level of integration with the unit and plan browser varied substantially.

Many of the interactive site plans did offer good integration with a list of available units but were typically not well integrated with the plan browser, unit search, or virtual tours, leading to a low over all score of 1.88 out of 10.

Leasing and Community Information!

When renters visit a community whether online or onsite, they are often overwhelmed with information. Making key leasing and community information ease to find and use will help streamline the leasing process. Where and how key leasing information is incorporated into the community website is as important as the information itself. Today’s renters are looking for a frictionless digital leasing experience that makes it easy for them to shop and lease online.

Making it easy for renters to schedule a community visit can increase community tours significantly. The ineffectiveness of a static form or a call can be costly. We were surprised to find that only 50% of the communities included in our study offered a live tour calendar and only 20% of the communities integrated the tour calendar into the unit browser, leading to an average score of only 3.3.

Online applications and leases have become essential. Of the communities studied, 90% offered online applications and leases and they were well integrated into the unit browser. Integrating the application link into the unit summary and browser encourages renters to apply once they have found the perfect unit.

Explore and Experience Amenities Online!

COMMUNITY SHOWCASE

To create a sense of lifestyle and to help renters experience amenities it is important to integrate and feature digital tours of all amenities directly on the amenities page of your community website. While sixty percent of the communities offered amenity virtual tours, none were available from the amenities page, and they were not incorporated into the amenities list. Amenity tours were typically located on a separate tours page.

Every website included in the survey offered a simple list of the building amenities with no detailed description of the amenities and few or no photos. The lack of integrated digital tours, engaging descriptions, and interactive content lead to an average community showcase score of just 1.52 of 10.

Discover Neighborhood Points of Interest

NEIGHBORHOOD SHOWCASE

Neighborhood amenities and location have become a critical part of the leasing decision. Convenient access to shopping, dining, entertainment, and transportation plays a significant role in the apartment search for today’s renters. Helping renters quickly explore the neighborhood with an interactive map, featured points of interest, aerial and street view is an important component of every community website.

Seventy percent of the communities offered at least a basic interactive neighborhood amenities map. However, the features, content, and effectiveness of the maps varied substantially. As outlined in the features table, the average score was only 2.08. The low scores were a result of both the limited design of the map and the content included in the maps. Many of the maps offered an interactive amenities list but failed to include an adequate number of points of interest or the content for each point of interest was very limited. Only 5% of the sites included a robust interactive list with engaging site content that included descriptions, photos, and links to reviews and other relevant content.