Rising insurance costs are rampant in the apartment industry, while landlords that require renter’s insurance are not. Those are several of the findings in a nationwide survey of apartment property managers released by the Washington, D.C.-based National Multi Housing Council (NMHC), which conducted the study with Los Angeles-based CEL & Associates. The survey examined the policies of management firms in a variety of areas, including resident applications and privacy, property insurance and technology.
"NMHC completed this survey at the request of the apartment industry’s leading firms, which asked us to help them by creating a benchmarking reference tool by which they could track their performance," said Jay Harris, vice president of property management at NMHC, in a statement announcing the study’s release.
All of the firms surveyed said their property and casualty insurance costs had risen during the last 12 months, and 16% said those expenses had more than doubled. As for attracting tenants, 50% of the firms spend $150 per unit or less marketing and advertising. Approximately 30% accept resident applications online.
Also, 14% of those surveyed use yield-management or rent-pricing software to adjust rents, and 34% provide information on residents’ rent-payment histories to national credit bureaus. In another finding, 18% of the firms surveyed require tenants to purchase renter’s insurance.