Whether you are currently looking for a new apartment to rent, or have an apartment complex of your own, you know that different renters look for different things in their apartment. What attracts tenants to one apartment complex may be completely different from what attracts someone to a different complex.
And the competition for renting space is only getting more competitive. Both with landlords competing for good tenants, and the tenants themselves being able to get into the apartment complex they want with the amenities and features they want. A study done by Pew Research shows that the number of U.S. households that are renting is now at the largest number in the last 50 years.
This means that apartment complex owners are going to have to compete for the best tenants possible by giving them the features and amenities at their complex that they want. So, what are tenants really saying is important to them when renting an apartment?
While every tenant is going to have their own, unique set of criteria that factors into where they rent and at what price, there are several general characteristics that range across the board that features prominently in virtually all tenant’s minds when they are deciding where to rent.
What Do Tenants Want In A Rental?
The number one consideration for anyone looking for an apartment is price. But simply being concerned about price makes little sense unless you have different things to compare that price to. Price in a vacuum doesn’t make any sense. What are you paying for? And what are you paying for compared to other places you could be renting at?
These are all things that must be considered when factoring in price. But when you boil it down, people do not have unlimited resources, and most have a top price for what they will pay. They are looking for specific things that come along with the apartment when they are considering renting.
So, what are those things?
The most often looked at features of an apartment complex are the Amenities.
What Is Considered An Amenity?
According to Investopedia, an amenity is defined as “a feature of a property that makes it more valuable to potential buyers or tenants.”
This can be virtually anything that attracts you to the apartment complex that has extra value outside the four walls you are going to live in. These features, or amenities, can be anything from the open floor plan of the apartment to the appliances to the pool, to the parking structure.
These are the things that make an apartment attractive to a buyer.
Let’s go through the most important amenities renters consider when renting a new apartment.
Location
The old real estate mantra, “Location, Location, Location” is as applicable to renters as it is to buyers and sellers. A potential renter is Seattle that finds the perfect apartment probably isn’t going to rent it if the apartment is located in Portland. To be of value to the renter, the unit must be within a reasonable driving or commuting distance from the important things in their life, specifically work, school, food, and entertainment.
Public transportation and vehicles allow people to extend the range they are willing to travel to and from their apartment each day, but the unit still has to be in a quasi-convenient spot for a renter to consider moving into an apartment.
Too long of a commute and you are spending both precious time and money that you could have spent on an apartment closer to the places you go most often in life. Every mile traveled away from your unit isn’t just time spent commuting, it’s dollars that are going out of your bank account.
Many people don’t realize that they could feasibly rent a more expensive apartment closer to their work and school instead of a cheaper apartment farther away because they don’t take into consideration all of the costs that go into travel.
Renters with children are absolutely going to want to be in close proximity to their kids’ school and other activities as well. A good location that fits the bill between these things is going to have a major impact on how many people are going to be applying for an apartment.
In the same way, some people are going to value space and privacy, and so an apartment complex on the edge of town or in the suburbs is going to be worth more to them. This is still location, and those locations can have value just the same as the apartment complexes that are located close to major city centers.
Parking
This may seem like a no-brainer, but parking can pose some major challenges and concerns while renting.
In a downtown or urban area, having a complex that has a parking structure is going to be at a premium due to space constrictions. This would be something that the tenants would value highly if they didn’t have to walk several blocks from another parking lot to get to their apartment every morning and night.
At apartments in a more standard, sprawled out fashion, tenants tend to value highly parking spaces as close to their building, and specifically the doors to their building more than almost anything else on the property. This is for a couple of reasons.
The first is just due to convenience. Everybody brings things in and out of their apartment, usually on a daily basis. Having to walk 100 yards just to get to your car or truck with your work papers and gym bag gets old after a while, just like carrying several loads of groceries all that distance only to hike up a couple of floors of steps on top of it.
Convenience is huge when it comes to parking spots and location and there are few things that tenants will become more possessive of than their parking space.
The other reason tenants value great parking takes us into our next amenity…
Personal Safety
A parking lot that is close to the tenant’s building is important for their personal safety.
Walking a long distance across a poorly lit parking lot late at night is not something that people want to do often. We value our safety and security, and this is a big thing for many people. Having a parking lot that is not only well-lit but close to the doors of their apartment building is crucial for not only their actual physical safety but also for their peace of mind.
Outside of the actual parking for the complex, what additional sort of security features do they have in their buildings? Are the doors secure and sturdy? Do they lock all the way so random people just can’t come in whenever they want? Are there call boxes located around the property? How well lit is not only the parking lots but also the common areas around the complex as well?
All of these features are worth value to a potential tenant and these are things that they are willing to pay for.
Appliances
What physical things come with the apartment is going to be very important to the potential renter. Is the apartment furnished or do the renters have to provide everything in the unit? Are they going to have to shoulder further costs to make the apartment livable?
Most times, apartments are going to come with a dishwasher, stove, and microwave as standard features, but if they don’t, a tenant needs to factor that into the price of a comparable unit that does have these things included. The apartment may be extremely close to work and school, but if you are going to have to spend another $1,000 or more simply to make it livable, is that going to be worth it?
Additionally, appliances like an in-unit washer and drier are becoming more and more valued. Having the convenience of being able to do your laundry inside your apartment is a huge time saver. Outside of looking for a washer and drier in your apartment itself, does the apartment building have a laundry facility in the basement or on a certain floor? What about at an off-site location?
Anymore, it isn’t just what is available for the tenant to use, it is how convenient those appliances are to the renter.
Updated Apartment
Nobody likes walking through an apartment the landlord is showing them and feeling like they have been warped back to the 80’s. Or even the 70’s. People are much more likely to rent a place if the unit has been updated in the recent past.
This means fresh paint, carpet that doesn’t look, feel, or smell old, and appliances that have been manufactured this century. It may sound silly, but these are things that many landlords don’t take the time or money to do, and that virtually every tenant looks for when applying to a new complex.
This is why online apartment listings are so important both for the prospective tenant and for the landlord themselves. The landlord needs to have fresh, new pictures of their updated apartments in order to attract new tenants to their complex.
The tenants can access these pictures very easily on their phones, tablets, or computers, and are going to use the pictures as one of their first tools in determining which apartments to apply for.
If your apartment complex is on the older side, that can be a problem that is overcome if you have nice, updated units inside the aging shell of the buildings. There isn’t much you can do to the outside of an old brick building besides tearing the whole thing down and building a new one, but what you can do is make sure that the inside looks like it was just built.
While price is always is going to play a key role as the primary determining factor, there are a few other things that renters are valuing over others. Location is a big factor, having the apartment located somewhere in close proximity to work and school.
The convenience of parking and the safety of the complex are also going to play a big role in attracting tenants, as well as the accessibility of different amenities such as appliances, washers, and driers.
