From remodels, renovations, upgraded amenities, and rebrands, there are a lot of changes that could cause your apartment's photos and videos to age quickly.
Renters expect fresh, accurate virtual tour content that’s informative and attractive across every channel. They want to see what the inside of your floorplans, amenities, and features would look like today—just as if they were to tour it in person.
Refreshing media at the right time helps renters make confident, informed decisions—and pre-qualify themselves before ever contacting your team. That means fewer misled prospects and less wasted time for your leasing staff.
By the time renters notice your virtual tours are outdated, it’s too late—your community's perception has already been affected. Here are five clear triggers that signal when it’s time to update your apartment photos and virtual tours:
1. Time-Based Triggers
To avoid stale visuals, refresh your apartment community's photos and videos every 3-5 years.
A regular cadence like this:
- is budget-friendly because you know when you'll need to account for it
- allows you to keep up with changing renter expectations
- gives you plenty of time to prepare your property to look its best
- and ensures consistent coverage for your community.
2. Event-Based Triggers
It's important that your virtual tours reflect your apartment community's current reality.
That means you should refresh your photos and videos after you've:
- completed major renovation (i.e. interior/exterior redesign)
- added a new amenity or feature (i.e. dog park, theater, pickleball court)
- or upgraded finishes like paint, flooring, etc.
Another event in a property's lifetime warranting a media refresh is when it's sold.
Oftentimes, they'll want to rebrand or renovate the community to reflect the standards of its new owner and/or management company. This can be a process that takes some time, however, so be thoughtful about exactly when you schedule your photo shoot.
We'd recommend communities in a sales transition wait until key remodeling and rebranding moments are complete.
3. Market-Based Triggers
If you're unsure about how your apartment's virtual tour content competes, evaluate your closest competitors.
Look for:
- what virtual tour content they're offering
- the quality of their photos and videos
- if they're covering floorplan and/or unit level visuals
Ask yourself, "Do my competitors have decision-empowering media that's making it easier for renters to choose them over us?"
If it appears that other properties nearby have newer, better-quality photos and videos, then you're already at a disadvantage. You'll be forced to increase marketing expenses and rent discounts to keep communities full—far more costly than a regular update to your virtual tours.
Or while evaluating competitors you discover that there's an opportunity for your virtual content to fill a gap others are missing, you can upgrade before the rest and capture renters' attention.
The multifamily industry is going all-in with virtual tour content—meaning there's even more incentive to ensure your community's photos and videos are up-to-date and effectively addressing renters' needs.
4. Performance-Based Triggers
Pay close attention to your marketing and leasing analytics.
They can give you some insight into how your virtual tours are impacting:
Website engagement
Look at bounce rates, time on site, and conversion rates.
When renters visit a floorplan page, do they stay longer—or are they leaving without applying or reaching out?
Virtual tour quality can explain their behavior, since we know outdated or missing content causes them to leave websites while clear, easy-to-use, floorplan-level content keeps them engaged.
Closing ratio
Look at your lead-to-lease, lead-to-tour, and tour-to-lease conversion rates, or number of tour no-shows. These metrics are directly impacted by the quality and content of your virtual tours.
When your virtual tours are outdated (or outright missing), it's not only impacting how renters perceive your community—it impacts how they feel after actually seeing it in-person.
Usually, there's going to be some differences they notice between what you display online and what your current reality is—and that's because you missed critical events-based triggers to refresh media.
Refreshing photos and videos won’t solve every performance challenge, but it’s one of the most impactful improvements you can make to boost engagement and conversions.
After all, the purpose of virtual tours is to allow renters to assess and build expectations about your community before reaching out—and that process does influence the effectiveness of your marketing and leasing.
5. Feedback-Based Triggers
Take time to talk to your leasing staff. They're the ones interacting most with your prospective renters, who provide valuable feedback about the state of your virtual tour content.
Encourage them to ask prospects questions about their virtual touring experience on your website.
When renters say these things, they’re telling you loud and clear that your media is costing you leases:
- "This looks a lot different than what I saw online."
- "I checked the website but the photos were dark and blurry."
- "The video was shaky and hard to follow."
- "I didn't see any photos or videos for this floorplan online."
The more negative comments they express, the more evidence there is for you to refresh media content. While the ROI of virtual tours are clear for you, remember, it's your renters who benefit most from a media upgrade.
Conclusion
Too many operators wait until renters complain or competitors outshine them to refresh their media. By paying attention to these five triggers, you can update before renters turn away and stay ahead in a competitive market.
Is it time to update your apartment photos and virtual tours? RentVision’s in-house media team captures floorplan-specific walkthrough videos and photos—delivering the content renters expect and giving your communities the edge online. Schedule a demo to learn more.