Every year businesses budget thousands for market research. Prices may range from a few hundred dollars for general market overviews to tens of thousands for customized market-specific studies. But before you start shelling out the big bucks to find out what the market thinks about you and your properties, take a moment to consider the information that is already freely available to you. Where is all of this valuable market data, you ask? Look no further than your social media accounts and reviews.

That’s right. Resident complaints and feedback provide real and specific opportunities to find out what’s important to your prospective renters and identify the details that will make your properties more appealing. Sometimes your residents are going to walk into your office and tell you exactly what they think. But these days they’re just as likely (or more so) to do their venting online: where the whole world can see the problem.

Some properties, hoping perhaps to avoid this potentially ugly challenge, have adopted policies that restrict the rights of residents to post their dissatisfaction online, or as in a recent example, actually added a clause to the lease forcing residents to connect with the property on social media. These policies are not only the source of widespread criticism and ridicule, they have the potential to make it harder for properties to benefit from the honest and open communication that the internet facilitates.

Finding ways to effectively “listen” to resident complaints, whether they’re received in person in the leasing office or posted anonymously on a ratings and reviews site, puts you in a position to know what your target market values most, what they wish you would do, and what they really don’t like about your properties. You can’t fix what you don’t know about. As properties identify and respond to resident issues (not to mention responding to resident posts) everyone benefits: your resident feels valued and validated, prospective renters see that they can expect to be treated with the same respect, and your teams have the chance to address problems (whether simply misunderstanding or actual substantive issues) before they get out of hand.

So learn to take advantage of the free market research that is available to your properties right now. And learn more about this topic at NAA in the Thursday 11:30 a.m. breakout session: “It’s Not Just a Review. It’s Free Market Research.”