How Much Do Manual Market Surveys Cost to Collect?

ApartmentIQ found that owners and managers with 100 properties spend approximately $300,000 a year in manual market surveys. 

That’s money taken from your bottom line. The process of manual market surveys has always been slow. Leasing teams spend long hours aggregating data into spreadsheets, which can lead to overtime as manual market surveys cut into their day-to-day customer service and property maintenance responsibilities. 

Market surveys are a cornerstone of multifamily growth. However, several factors heavily drive up business costs. These include: 

1. Resources

A leasing professional spends approximately one day each month aggregating comp data. That's 12 business days a year of removed focus from tenant and property management. Your tenants’ happiness depends on customer service and maintained communities.

Relying on leasing staff to conduct manual market surveys can greatly impact business revenue. Think about these associated resource costs of conducting manual market surveys: 

• • Staff wages 
  • Reporting frequency (weekly, monthly, and quarterly)
  • Time spent on data versus other priorities

2. ILS Data

Do you know where your data comes from? Teams using ILS to collect property information aren’t receiving an accurate full story. 

The data returned is scrubbed from their ILS database (only their users), which can 1) pigeonhole your data and 2) unintentionally lead to private data sharing. 

Property and pricing details are generally outdated and non-compliant, leading to skewed data and reporting. Furthermore, you might consider that not all your competitors are on ILS. Some properties may find better leads from owned marketing efforts. These are pertinent insights missing from your market surveys. 

3. Geographical Coverage

Your geographical coverage can factor into the cost of your manual market surveys. Researching markets and submarkets requires mindful observation from your team. You're collecting data on a large scale–territories are more concentrated. 

Obtaining all the relevant property insights that matter to owners takes time. Just think of the detailed insights they expect:

• • Concession details attracting renters
  • Total units of comparable properties
  • Leasing velocity growth/decline 
  • Hidden availability of units 
  • Average rent of the competition
  • Unit mix at properties
  • Amenity comparisons   

4. Survey Scope

In-depth manual market surveys increase costs. The scope of metrics demands more research, focus, and time to gather information. 

Unit-level granularity in your reports conveys comprehensive insights that help owners strategize their portfolios. Some of these pricing and availability metrics they want to see include: 

• • Gross rent
  • Net effective rent (NER)
  • Total available units
  • New available units
  • Days on market 
  • Date of availability

Modernize Your Market Surveys Using AI-Driven Software 

Using manual market surveys comes at a steep price. It’s costing multifamily businesses hundreds of thousands of dollars in time and labor collecting data–heavily impacting customer service and property maintenance. 

There’s a more intuitive solution to gather comp data. 

ApartmentIQ is transforming the way properties are approaching market surveys. Using AI-driven software and 100% public data, multifamily professionals accelerate workflows and prove market success with automated, accurate, and compliant insights. 

It’s time to modernize your market surveys to save costs and have confidence in your data.

Learn more about the platform →