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.
Renters are also willing to pay more to live with Fido and Fifi. More than half of the respondents reported they currently pay a pet deposit, with 36% shelling out more than $200. It also seems current residents without pets aren’t turned off by properties that allow pets. Nearly 35% of respondents said that although they do not own a pet, they enjoy living in a pet-friendly building and 46% said they were ambivalent.
Does your property have a pet policy? Either way we would love to hear your thoughts on having a policy as well as feedback on the results of this survey in the comments section.
Below is an infograph reflecting the key findings of the survey.
We’ve allowed small dogs in certain buildings but are finding this to be a nuisance for those who wish to walk around and not hear barking dogs all day. With 12 apartments per building, a barking dog or two or having to watch where you walk, (when our advertisement is about having areas to walk around,) can be more negative than positive. It’s very hard to catch those pet owners not following the rules also! It may provide a few more occupied units, but it is also causing some unhappy residents.
These statistics do not surprise me as it seems more and more renters choose to own pets which makes most property owners have no choice but to welcome their furry companions into the rental units.
The statistics that I would be most interested in, that isn’t included in this article, is how many property owners have problems that stem from the pets that are allowed into the rental units? What’s the percentage of non-pet-owners who leave a property due to a neighbor’s misbehaved pet? What’s the average cost of property damages and regular maintenance caused by pets in both the rental unit and around the rental community? Considering all the pros and cons, is it really worth it for property owners to open their doors to pet owners or is it too just much trouble?
Don’t think that the pets are the biggest problem it tends to be the owners! A majority of our inquires do involve pets and people love them a consider them part of the family and are willing to pay to have them come with. We only allow small dogs on site and I wish we would allow larger. Seems like the small dogs can and will do more damage.
I love the infographic. Minneapolis is pretty dog friendly all around. The buildings that are not interested tend to be older buildings downtown. We just had 2 new dog parks built downtown in response to the influx of pet owners in the city.