This post was originally written by Kerry Sugrue, former Social Media Specialist at Apartments.com. 

Reduce, Renew, Reuse. To some this phrase is an overused alliteration, to others it’s a lifestyle, but to apartment communities it’s any easy way to make a difference. At Apartments.com, we try to do our part around the office to help the planet, like providing sustainable lunch bags to employees and strategically placing recycling bins around copy rooms and printers. Read More

This post was originally written by Brandon Hollembeak, Product Manager – Advertising Products & Services

Congratulations to the following Apartments.com customers who were selected as the winners of our March Live Chat contest to receive a new iPad 2! Read More

This post was originally written by Kerry Sugrue, former Social Media Specialist at Apartments.com. 

Our third annual Roommate of the Year Contest is coming soon, so we invited our 2010 Grand Prize Winner, Andrew Prestler, to come to Chicago and help us film our intro video. Luckily, I had my Flipcam to capture all the behind the scenes fun! Read More

This post was originally written by Kerry Sugrue, former Social Media Specialist at Apartments.com. 

Peak rental season is right around the corner, so I sat down with the Apartments.com Director of Photography, Mandana Namvar, to discuss the importance of photos and what her department can do to get your property spring-time-ready!  If you have any questions for Mandana make sure to comment below and if you would like to talk to someone about scheduling a photo shoot for your apartment community please email sales@apartments.com.  Thanks for watching! Read More

This post was originally written by Kerry Sugrue, former Social Media Specialist at Apartments.com. 

As cheesy as the title is, providing a safe and fun environment for your residents is very important when it comes to a shared fitness center, especially since 77% of renters told Apartments.com that they would be more likely to increase their workouts if there was a fitness facility in their building.  Below are a couple tips to keep all those people healthy and happy in your fitness center: Read More

If you’re a regular visitor to, or long-time customer of Apartments.com, you may have noticed the significant transformation of  our site that has taken place in the last week or so.  After years of research, hard work and testing, we launched a redesigned version of our home page and search path!  Needless to say, I’m very  proud of the resulting effort.

What’s important to note is that this is not only a front-end re-skinning of our site, but a complete re-build of our underlying architecture.  The goal, therefore, was not just to improve the user experience, but create a robust foundation for future growth and innovation.  Mission accomplished! That said, the freshest new features are the ones you see on the front-end, the ones that help prospective renters find a place to live, and I’ll enumerate a few of them now: Read More

This post was originally written by Brandon Hollembeak, Product Manager – Advertising Products & Services

Ok, so it’s not such a shocker, but it’s definitely true that the more you’re online and available with Live Chat, the more renters will start chatting with you to get their questions answered, and hopefully set an appointment to take a tour! Read More

This post was originally written by Kerry Sugrue, former Social Media Specialist at Apartments.com. 

The busiest rental season is quickly approaching, which means spring cleaning, softball leagues, daydreaming about college trips to Panama City Beach and touching base with your potential and current residents!  With MyMedia you can keep in touch year round.  Our ongoing updates and slick designs provide you with countless creative options to choose from so you can effortlessly send relevant communications customized to prospects or residents.  While, I could just list all our features, I’d rather give you an idea of how MyMedia plays an important role through the lifecycle of a resident.  So, without further ado, I’d like to introduce John Doe Properties… Read More

This post was originally written by Kerry Sugrue, former Social Media Specialist at Apartments.com. 

Two weeks ago we discussed Google’s algorithm change and how it could potentially affect your website’s traffic.  After having some time to review their web analytics and traffic reports, Larry Cotter, VP of Apartments.com and General Manager of Apartment Home Living (AHL), saw positive effects from the change!  I had the opportunity to chat with Larry about the jump in traffic AHL is seeing and asked if he would share his findings as a blog post. Read More

We have recently come across several conversations online about the value of an Internet Listing Service (ILS), like Apartments.com.  While trying to decide the best way to approach this question, I thought of a popular saying; “you never really know what you had until it’s gone.”  So, that made me think, what would a world be like without ILS’s…?

Let’s say that, for whatever reason, tomorrow all ILSs ceased to exist and no longer appeared in Google’s search results.  Consumers using “long-tail” search terms – i.e. “two bedroom apartments in Chicago” – would probably do alright, because they’d at least get back property websites or Google Place listings for communities in Chicago, even if the quality of the experience varies widely from there.  Consumers using more general terms, like “apartments for rent” (there are about 2.25 million of those per month on Google) would have a harder time, having to go through several individual property management company sites to find a handful of listings that might suit their needs.  It would be frustrating and arduous experience, and only the management companies with the very largest national footprint would have any success in that world. Read More