Friday, May 29, 2009

Apartment Search Sites Don't Live Up to My Expectations

For over 20 years I've dedicated my working life to advancing the property management industry. Ever since the web hosted the first Apartment Search site I've been disappointed by the quality of the search experience.

There are currently over a hundred apartment search websites (if you look really hard) with about 30 that make up the majority of the traffic from apartment hunters nation wide. Of those 30, only a handful demonstrate any truly creative or original content. It would seem that when it comes to apartment hunting a search is a search is a search . For example, try searching apartments in Ventura, California and you will see between 6 and 30 results depending on the search portal you used. The problem is that regardless of the amount of work you do to find the best site and then to sift through the dozens of listings shown, you will still not have an easy way to compare the various apartment communities and even worse you will have no idea of whether or not the price quoted is a fair one.

Something is missing from even the best of these sites; something that could captivate an audience of apartment hunters and revolutionize the apartment search experience the way that google revolutionized the way we search the web. Something that could change the way the industry thinks about and and acts towards the customer (apartment seeker). To that end, I would like to explore where the industry is heading, how we can improve on the current best practices and any other related topics.

Please post your comments on my site and we'll see if we can spur some fruitful conversation. Who knows maybe we will start a revolution in the way people search for apartments. I look forward to some lively conversation.

Yours Truly
Apartment Sage

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