Everyone evaluates apartments differently, and it seems no one knows exactly what they’re looking for. There are just so many factors to consider. Brokers know this all too well. We’ve talked with a lot of them, and their worst nightmare is someone who can’t describe what they want, which makes showing around prospective tenants a lot more time-consuming.

Fortunately, the National Apartment Association has been making big strides in understanding tenants’ needs, especially students. Earlier this month, they came out with their new report which sampled over 10,000 students, and 3,500 parents: Apartment Features, Amenities And Programs That Sell To Students And Parents. Here at JumpOffcampus, we’ve started making it easier to include parents in the housing search, but it looks like parents and students don’t see eye-to-eye when it comes to apartment hunt.

So, what matters most? As you can guess, students and parents had different answers. For students, number one was price, and location was second. For parents, the most important factor was security, also followed by location, with price coming in third. And interestingly, although it may seem that students care a lot about proximity to friends, it ranked higher with parents than students.

So what defines a more secure apartment? According to parents, it’s location and controlled access, which can consist of key fobs or buzzers. If you manage properties with these add-ons, make sure it’s well known! There are a lot of other issues surrounding security, and one of the important ones was well-lit parking areas. This seems like a cheap fix for a lot of landlords, and may be as easy as installing a light on the side of the house. About 20% of both students and parents said it was the single most important security feature for an apartment to have!

-Kyle