Lifehacker.com recently posted a blog entry sharing the results of their Apartment Listing Survey. The top five sites were:
- Hotpads.com
- Padmapper.com
- Apartments.com
- MyApartmentMapper.com
- and the tried and true, pounding the pavement!
Interestingly of the Internet entries, all but Apartments.com are relatively new to the market. This tells me that what keeps people coming back to a site are the site tools and interesting content. Feature rich is the name of the game when it comes to apartment hunting. People like maps, pictures, neighborhood information and tools to help them assess value.
What does this mean as an owner or manager? You can provide most of these tools on your web site with some time and patience to add the appropriate widgets. So, KEEP your visitors on your site by bringing the tools they want to your site. Embed the tools and keep the visitor. Don’t make your visitor leave to obtain the information they need.