If you have ever been in the market for an apartment rental and you have used the search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, or MSN; you are sure to have come across apartment ratings.com. Apartment ratings is simply a blog. Each apartment community has its own section. Now of course every apartment in every city is not listed on this site. But the majority of all the class "A" properties are. These class of properties are usually 5 years old and contain a myriad of amenities and features. Individuals who have created a password and login can leave any opinion they wish on any particular property. Now in theory this should be a great avenue for renters and future renters alike. Future renters can simply visit the website and read reviews written by individuals who are familiar with the property. But many times this is not the case and the reviews may be weighted or biased in a certain direction.
First of all, anyone can post a review. All it takes to register is a user-name and valid email. So if a competitor or someone who has no knowledge of the property wants to bash the property or write a negative review there is no one to stop them. Many readers of the website believe that these reviews are valid and trust the source. In all my years of being in apartment locating I have never seen so much credibility given to a website before. I can only believe that web users believe that whoever is leaving the comments is speaking the truth. You will also notice on the site that an overwhelming majority of the reviews are negative. Can it be possible that everyone who leaves a review believes the apartment is not worth their repeat business? Or is it more reasonable that only renters who register take the time to do so because they are upset about a situation? If you really want to dig deep find out how many apartment units are on the premises. Then check out how many reviews the community has on apartment ratings. How many reviews are very similar to one another. For example do they all talk about the thin walls or is just one comment pertaining to that specific comment. If ten people left comments within the last year and there are 300 units then there are reviews from a little over 3% of the renters. That is hardly enough to make an informed decision
But you should know that apartment ratings is in the business of sales. They will ask you to leave your personal information so you can be contacted by someone who is knowledgeable. They will sell or give your lead to an agent in your particular city. And I wonder if the agent is aware of the reviews you have read and what concerns you may have. Or do they just want to make a fast buck.
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