Apartment Guide

Author: Kalicia Bateman

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The Good

• Community information
• Search

Many real estate searching companies provide some information about the neighborhoods the listings are located in. Most are limited to the schools in that area. But Apartment Guide offers much more information about the communities the complexes are located in. When a customer searches for a city, an information bar becomes available with Community information. This information bar includes:

• County
• Population
• Growth since 2000
• Population density
• Demographics (percentage of each gender)
• Household income average and median

That information bar also contains the schools in that community, what type they are (private, public, catholic, etc) and what grades they serve. Once the customer decides on an apartment they want to learn more about, they can find more information about that specific apartment community and the amenities provided within it. Some of these amenities can include:

• Fitness centers
• Extra storage
• Covered parking
• Parks
• Internet access
• Gated entry
• Any-time maintenance

This is not an exhaustive list of amenities provided in the different apartment complex communities, but just an example of typical items on the lists. With all of this information, the customer is able to make an informed decision about where they want to live. The surrounding community is an important aspect of any home, but especially so for an apartment. Since the community is so important in an apartment setting, the filtered search is a very helpful feature for customers of Apartment Guide. The customer has the option to search for available apartments in varying types of communities. For example:

• Near military bases
• Near colleges
• Near communities
• Near cities
• Near zip codes

That type of extra specific search allows the customer to really customize what types of results they get in their results. This, in turn, helps to save them time by not having to look through hundreds of listings that are not even relevant to what they want.

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The Bad

• Property types
• Pricing information

Just like their name, Apartment Guide, suggests this company only provides listings for apartments for rent or lease. They deal exclusively with apartment complexes that have units that are available for customers to move into. This is obviously a downside for those customers that are not looking for an apartment but instead are looking for a house, condo or another type of building. These types of customers will definitely not find what they are looking for. On the other hand, having such a narrow scope for the listings is an upside for customers who know they are definitely looking to move into an apartment. Apartment Guide is part of a larger family of real estate searches, RentPath, which has other entities that will cater to other customer's needs. There is no pricing information given on any of the surrounding areas for the apartment complexes. Many other real estate companies will have lists of homes in the area of the listing and their value (or price if they are for sale). This helps the customer to see if the price for the house they are interested in is actually a good deal and similar to what others are paying for in that area. But there is no information similar to that on Apartment Guide. Even though there would not be similar house prices in the area, comparing the prices of close-by apartments would make sense for these customers just the same. The only pricing information given is the different types of apartments within the complex itself. The different options for apartments within the complex also often come with a floor plan, which really helps the customer see if that apartment will work for them without having to make an actual visit. There also is no information on how long the apartment has been listed for. In most cases, the customer is asked to check for availability with the complex manager. This can be an issue if the customer decides they really like a space after looking at the listing only to find out that it is not actually available.

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The Bottom Line

For those customers who are looking for a house, condo, or another building type for their home, Apartment Guide is not the company to use since they do not offer any information on these types of listings. But it is a great resource for those customers who know they want to live in an apartment. Each listing has a pretty complete list of information on the different types of apartments available in that complex. Apartment Guide really shines in their descriptions of the surrounding communities and help the customers get a feel for the type of area they will be living in. Overall, the customer should be able to find an apartment that will work for their needs and wants based on a large number of listings on Apartment Guide.