AI search accounts for 57.5% of activity compared with 42.5% for human search
AI Agents Are Changing How Renters Find Apartments
For apartment owners and operators, the next leasing prospect may never click through to a property website. Instead, an AI agent may scan the site, compare the community with competing options and present a renter with a recommendation before the prospect has spoken to a leasing agent.
That shift is already changing the purpose of apartment marketing websites, according to Veronica Romney, general manager, and marketing suite at Realpage. Speaking last week at the company’s RealWorld conference in Denver, Romney said bot and AI-agent internet traffic has surpassed human traffic for the first time, with agentic search accounting for 57.5% of activity compared with 42.5% for human search.
For multifamily investors, the implications go beyond marketing metrics. If an AI tool can’t find basic information on a property website—such as unit configurations, pet restrictions, transit access or parking—it may pull its answer from a third-party source instead. That can affect which communities renters see, consider and ultimately contact.
“We now have to serve two masters: the resident and the agent,” Romney said. “They don’t agree or care about the same things. But if you don’t serve both audiences, your playbook is stale.”
From Clicks to Being Chosen
Traditional search engine optimization was largely designed to win rankings and clicks on Google or Bing. Agentic search optimization or ASO, has a different goal: making a property the source an AI agent selects, cites and recommends.
AI systems do not necessarily rank websites based on brand authority in the same way traditional search engines do, Romney said. Instead, they identify content that most directly answers a user’s question, wherever that information appears online.
“SEO got you clicked. Agentic Search Optimization gets you chosen,” Romney said.
That means apartment websites must be more than polished digital brochures. They need to provide useful, specific answers that an AI system can extract and use. A renter may ask an AI tool whether a community allows large dogs, has in-unit laundry, offers covered parking or is close to public transit. If the property website doesn’t answer those questions clearly, the AI may find answers elsewhere.
Romney used an example of apartment copy that combines an inviting tone with concrete details: “Bring the whole family—including the 50-pound rescue pup. Aero Apartments is pet-friendly, with two dogs welcome, a rooftop pool and in-unit laundry. The Blue Line is just a 6-minute walk when you’d rather leave the car at home. Reserved covered parking available onsite.”
For renters, the language creates a picture of daily life at the property. For an AI agent, it provides usable facts about the pet policy, weight limit, amenities, transit access and parking.
“It needs copy that humans can feel and machines can quote,” Romney said.
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Better Content Can Drive Better Leads
The shift toward AI-driven discovery also changes how apartment marketers should evaluate demand. Search rankings, clicks and impressions have long been standard measures of digital performance, but Romney described them as proxies for demand rather than demand itself.
Instead, she advised apartment marketers to focus on AI citation rate, branded research lift and contact-to-tour conversions. Those measures can provide a closer view of whether prospective renters are finding relevant property information and acting on it.
A recent case study involving a property that used Realpage’s ASO tools found that 55% of prospective residents who read an AI-first FAQ page called the property, compared with 18% of those who did not. The communities also recorded 10 times fewer wasted calls per month, while calls from high-intent renter prospects increased by 77%.
The results suggest that better answers can do more than improve online visibility. They can help leasing teams spend more time with serious prospects and less time handling calls from renters who lack basic information about the community.
For owners and operators, that distinction matters. Apartment demand does not become more valuable simply because a website generates more traffic. It becomes more valuable when prospective renters arrive with a clearer understanding of the property and a stronger intent to tour or lease.
“The goal now is not necessarily to drive more traffic, but to protect the demand that you have,” Romney said.
First-Party Data Gains Importance
Romney also urged marketers to move away from reliance on third-party attribution systems managed by companies such as Google and Facebook. In that model, she said, property operators are effectively renting access to data and relying on platforms to report their own performance.
The approach faces additional pressure as browsers and technology companies limit third-party tracking. Safari and Firefox have increasingly blocked it, Apple’s iOS rules have curtailed it and Google Chrome is phasing out cookies, Romney said.
First-party attribution gives owners and operators more control because they collect and retain data from their own websites and leasing funnels. Romney compared it to owning a building and installing a front-door camera rather than relying on someone else to report who entered.
Source: GlobeSt.
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