Anyone that is in the apartment industry, or even most people that have ever searched for an apartment online, have either come across, or are extremely familiar with Apartmentratings.com. Apartment Ratings is a website that allows "residents" and anyone else that has had an experience with an apartment community to post anything they would like that that individual deems as helpful information to future prospects interested in the prospective community. The website has a great concept behind it, but is often either taken for granted, or it is abused.
The screening process behind who can post on Apartment Ratings is extremely minimal and the main questioning is used to hopefully ensure that the individual posting is not anyone associated with employment at the community and that they were in fact a former or current resident of the community. From a prospects point of view, the website can be helpful to get a behind the scenes look at the community and learn about certain events, both good and bad, that have occurred at the property. What each individual must keep in mind though is that each posting must be taken with a grain of salt, because there is no way to actually prove that the posting is 100% truthful information. Just as the website can be a template for a resident to warn individuals interested in the community of potential speed bumps in the leasing process, it can also be a platform for a disgruntled resident to anonymously make-up harmful information to get back at a community for their particular transgressions.
From a management side of things, it is important to monitor what is being said about your community, because you do not want someone else making your online reputation for you. Managers are able to join Apartment Ratings for a yearly nominal fee (I believe it is currently $300) that will allow these managers to respond to postings to address each unique issue. In doing so managers will show that they are looking to reach-out to any resident that feels they were wronged to resolve their issue and in responding to any positive postings, it will show that the manager truly cares for these residents and will be a rapport building opportunity. The important thing to remember is that if a manager is looking to address these postings on Apartment Ratings, it needs to come from a credible screen name (i.e., ABCapartmentsmanager) and not from an anonymous source, because this could lead to a "fuel to the fire" situation in that any person that has posted negatively will feel that a manager is not confident enough about their community to step forward and take responsibility.
Apartment Ratings will always be a site that communities need to be familiar with to ensure their online reputation is on-par and in addition, will always be a site that residents will continue to post to express their feelings about apartment communities.
Enjoy!
CLASS Leasing
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