Rent.com recently released a whitepaper (source: AvalonBay) entitled, “Maximizing Apartment Marketing Return on Investment: How changes in renter behavior are affecting apartment marketing strategies”. 

I suggest you read the whole thing but below is a summary:

•  84% of renters think of searching online for an apartment - More than twice the number that think about using print ad in a newspaper or magazine

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• Unaided Awareness of internet sites used to find an apartment
• Four of the top six sites mentioned were national ILSs, one was a search engine and one was a classified site. None were apartment marketing / corporate sites.

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• How Renters Search for Apartments
• 80% of Internet Queries related to “apartments” or “for rent” are three to six words long

The graph below, with data from Hitwise for Jan 2009, shows the relative volume of traffic for all variations of apartment and rental-related keywords broken down by the number of keywords in a search term.

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• Search behavior and macroeconomic trends
• Foreclosure search volume 

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• “houses for rent” searches have grown 310% YOY 

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• 2008 saw an increase in average # of bedrooms searched

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• Both the average min and max rent amount that renters searched for increased in 2008, surpassing 2007 levels mid-year
• Possible reasons for this (renters are trading up or renters are doubling up)

“Extremely” and “Very” Important Factors in Selecting an Online Rental Source

• Most Important in Order
• Free to use site
• Provide Accurate Information
• Up-To-Date Listings
• Shows Current Available Apartments
• Detailed information about Property
• Is easy to navigate 

(Click to view chart)

• “Must Have” Features of Rental Websites
• In order from greatest to least
• Date property will be available
• Floor Plan
• Sq ft
• Pictures of specific apartment
• Maps and directions
• Visual layout of complex
• Number of units for rent
• Position of specific property in complex
• Date property listed
• Date property was built
• Number of units in complex

(Click to view chart)

• Top-Ranked Amenity Searches
• In order from most searched
• Washer and Dryer (39%)
• A/C (30%)
• With Photos First (29%)
• Fitness Center (10%)
• Pool (9%)
• Parking Available (6%)
• Property Name (5%)
• Laundry Room (5%)
• Hardwood Floor (4%)
• W/D Connections (1%)
• Walk-in Closets (1%)

•   Percentage of total clickthroughs vs. position in search engine results pages
• Notice the “long tail” of pages where sites show drives a higher Clickthrough rate in aggregate than those that show on Page 1

(Click to view chart)

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