Several years ago, I achieved the American Dream. I bought a home.

But, I've got to be honest: sometimes being a homeowner is anything but a dream. I often find myself missing the ease and simplicity of apartment living and all of the extras that make it so great. I find myself a little jealous of apartment residents.

I miss John, the exceptionally kind doorman who would greet me every night when I got home from work with a genuine smile. I even find myself pining for the trash chute that was in my apartment. Stinky scraps from an elaborate fish dinner? Simply run them to the trash chute. Tons of trash following a dinner party turned rager? Run the evidence to the trash chute and be done with it.

But I especially miss how simple it was to get the help I needed with my day-to-day tasks. It was so easy and affordable to use a dog walker because so many of them were already coming to my apartment community. When I lived in an apartment in downtown Chicago, I had a great dog walker who would take my Maltese, Serge, out for a daily, leisurely stroll in the dead of winter. Now, it's not nearly as convenient to hire a walker because they’re aren’t that many coming to our community daily. So I have to rely on my husband to walk the dog - and frankly, I’m a little skeptical of the quality of walks the pooch is getting.

And how I wish I could use the well-organized and affordable housekeeping services that many apartment residents have access to. At least half of the time, my housekeeper either no-shows or comes late. So I’ve then wasted precious morning time by stripping beds, only to have to make the beds myself after a long day at work.

These days, many homeowners are bound to feel jealous of their apartment-dwelling friends. That's because more and more multifamily communities are offering a wide array of true lifestyle services – the kinds of services that help residents take care of their daily chores and responsibilities. These include laundry, dry cleaning, dog walking and housekeeping. Residents also can purchase isolated, small-scale services such as clothes folding, dishwashing, bed making, single-room cleaning, plant watering and decluttering. These small-scale offerings, especially, are the kinds of services that single-family homeowners just don't have access to, for reasons that I'll detail in a bit.

Add it all up, and today's apartment communities are better equipped than ever to free their residents from the burden of everyday chores and to create the kinds of stress-free homes that produce very high levels of resident satisfaction.

The Volume Pricing Advantage
So why can apartment residents hire someone to come fold their clothes or water their plants on a Friday afternoon, when this is a near impossibility for single-family homeowners? The answer lies in volume pricing.

Because service pros can serve multiple apartment units in a community at a time, they are able to keep prices low for apartment dwellers. It also helps that the average apartment is quite a bit smaller than the average house.

In the end, it just doesn't make financial sense for service providers to send a team member out to one single-family home in a residential neighborhood to fold someone's clothes. The time and expense of getting out there doesn't lend itself to a fee that homeowners would be willing to pay.

The Impact on Resident Satisfaction
The effect of these services is powerful. According to a review of Spruce’s internal data, apartment residents who use lifestyle services are significantly more likely to renew their leases than those who don't. Residents who purchase at least two lifestyle services have a renewal rate of 81.4 percent. When apartment renters purchase more than 20 lifestyle services, their renewal rate jumps to nearly 90 percent.

On the flip side, residents who didn’t purchase services at the same communities renewed at a rate of just 68 percent. Also consider that the overall apartment resident retention rate was only 52.5 percent in 2018, according to RealPage.

This makes sense. Residents clearly develop a deep loyalty to apartment communities who make it so easy for them to take care of the everyday basics, who allow them to truly unwind and relax in their downtime.

Speaking of which, I've got a big pile of clothes to fold right now. If only I lived in an apartment….