Apartment Guide finds renters want security

ATLANTA—Apartment Guide, a resource for renters and part of the digital marketing solutions company RentPath, recently published a blog highlighting security as an amenity many renters are looking for.

The blog included data from RentPath surveys including an “online, blind survey of 2,000 renters … conducted by Egg Strategy in conjunction with RentPath in 2017, with the final analysis completed in February 2018,” and an “online, blind survey of 750 renters conducted by RentPath Research between November 10 - December 4, 2017.” In addition, the blog referenced The 2017 Kingsley Nationwide Renter Report, which was conducted in July 2017 in partnership with the National Multifamily Housing Council and surveying 269,332 renters.

Angie Amon, director of research for RentPath, talked with Security Systems News about the trends among these reports. “People are looking for their home. It's not a car that they're going to rent for a few days, or even a car they're going to buy that they could easily get rid of if it didn't work out. It's their home, and the things that they're trying to do is make it feel like home. They want to feel safe, they want to feel secure … and that it's not a hassle to live there,” Amon said.

RentPath distributed surveys to people seeking apartments, specifically renters that were open to developments with 50 or more units. “We really drilled down into a specific segment of renter population,” Amon said.

Despite prompting survey takers to “think big” and be imaginative, many still put emphasis on practical conveniences like having a washer and dryer in their unit, Amon said.

RentPath also asked survey respondents to select an item that most interested them and one that least interested them out of larger groups. “Out of that came the gated access, the security measure,” Amon said, and this group was the highest at 35 percent. “That was the number one 'most interested' thing that people mentioned, and had the fewest votes of 'least interested' in.”

The company recognized another trend of people looking for app-controlled door locks, rating at 25 percent.

Property managers and companies could benefit from emphasizing the security measures at their properties, according to Amon. “It comes up over and over and over again in both the quantitative and the qualitative work that we do, where people talk about wanting to be in a safe area. And they define that in different ways, some of it has to do with what security measures are at the property … others define it by what kind of activity is going on in the area.”