This post was originally written by Jim Davoren, Senior Analyst, Data Products at Apartments.com
In the spirit of March Madness and, of course, all things data, I thought it would be nifty to craft a visualization of actual Apartments.com data in tournament bracket style. With the help of our very talented Senior Graphic Designer, Laurie Genzlinger, we put together a data driven visualization that illustrates the top 16 user searched amenities on Apartments.com.
To make this happen, we seeded each amenity, one through four, based on total searches and broke them into four conferences. We then took this search data and let it solely dictate the outcome of the matchup, advancing the amenity with the higher relative search volume. In short, our final four top searched amenities consisted of: Washer/Dryer in Unit, Parking, Dishwasher and Air Conditioning. After a grueling round of matchups, Washer/Dryer in Unit and Air Conditioning moved to the finals, with Washer/Dryer taking the title.
I like this visualization because it illustrates the importance of each of these amenities, relative to another, in the eyes of the renter. For example, hardwood floors may be important to renters, but next to high speed internet it falls short. Taking that a step further, the same included high speed internet is a really nice feature, but relative to parking, parking takes the cake.
This was fun to put together and hopefully serves a useful visualization of some of the user search behavior we track at Apartments.com. As a property manager, which amenities do you find to be the highest in demand?
Thanks, Kerry. Who would think that a washer & dryer in the apartment home would be the favored amenity? I will share this with my customers that highlight their pool/clubhouse/fitness center amenities in their advertising, rather than showcasing what the apartment has to benefit the renter.
Hey, share away! True story, I am actually moving to a new apartment and can vouch that our amenity search data lines up with what I found are my personal needs/wants. An onsite washer and dryer for me is absolutely critical with parking availability coming in at a close second. I have my own AC unit but until I did, AC was an absolute must. (Chicago has some hot summers. ha.) I’m glad you enjoyed the visual and again share away.
Thanks,
Jim D.
This is very interesting, but there is one amenity that I believe that could win this. That is Valet Trash Service, who likes putting trash on car or walking up and down the stairs, going out in the the elements?
Cool idea. I bet the answers would be different though if you asked individual people what was most important to them too. Around here, I would assume that all apartments had A/C but I would not assume that all apartments had a washer and dryer. Therefore, W/D is something that I need to search for if I need to weed out all of the places that don’t have Washer and Dryer. There’s little point to me searching for A/C because it won’t narrow down the search any.
Similiarly, I bet in general most people (other than people that own dogs) would rather live at a place that doesn’t allow dogs than one that does allow dogs, but not all places allow dogs so it ends up being more searched for.
Thanks, Mike! That’s a great point. There certainly is the liklihood that if you were to survey the field in a hotter climate, an amenity such as air conditioning may be an assumed feature at a community. It would be interesting to run that sort of consumer analysis. Looking at our data at the granular level, our top 5 searched amenities by our consumers is very similar across the majority of our large markets including hotter climates. It makes me wonder if prosepctive renters are really careful about finding that perfect place when searching and want to cover all bases. Very interesting, Mike. Thanks!