Must love dogs is what the sign outside your property should read if you want to attract pet-loving prospects. Dogs of all sizes dominated the list of the most popular pets for renters, according to a recent survey by Apartments.com.

If your apartment community does not have a pet-friendly policy, you may want to reconsider as 43% of renters surveyed said they are pet owners, with more than a quarter planning on getting a four-legged friend within the next year.  This is especially true if you have properties in Texas, California and Florida as those states ranked the highest in pet population among renters . Renters also made it clear that whether or not a property had a pet-friendly policy played a major factor in choosing where to live. Read More

Raising the rent is a necessary reality in the life of a property manager.  If you never raised rents, you’d be out of business before too long.  With retention as a primary goal for many property managers, tackling this topic with residents is a difficult and uncomfortable conversation for many to have.  However, we learned last week, during the Training Series Live! webinar, hosted by Sarah Greenough (@SGreenough), SVP and CMO of Princeton Properties, there are ways of having these conversations.  The key to communicating a rent increase is to deliver the news in a confident, positive manner while keeping the resident’s perspective in mind.

Here are five tips Sarah covered to prepare you when having the talk with your residents: Read More

Kids these days. What do we really know about them? Well, these coming-of-age youths of Gen Y are more technologically evolved than preceding generations, which is evidenced by their behavior: co-dependent relationships with their mobile phones, addiction to social media and video games likely accessed from their tablet. And, apparently, they prefer renting an apartment over owning a home. That’s one of the factors cited by Reis for the historically low vacancy and high rents being seen in the U.S. right now.

In a recent Chicago Tribune article, Ryan Severino, senior economist at Reis, says This generation doesn’t hold home ownership on a pedestal the way prior generations did. Read More

Many savvy renters are continually on the hunt for tips to maximize their living space.  Below are three must-have products to share with your residents to help them create storage even in the smallest bathrooms by using floating shelves, tiered bathroom storage and an over-the-door shoe rack.

Floating Shelves: Read More