When my family gets together for a weekend, we often tour model homes to see what builders are doing with new construction.  One of the model homes this past trip used cards throughout the house that featured amenities and highlight the benefits of living at that house.  I absolutely love that idea, and we have seen it applied in model apartments, as well.  But with any idea, bad execution can make a good concept a joke!  Let's dig into these cards and see how these mistakes can, and do, happen in apartment communities.

To give some context, these cards were found in a model home close to 4,000 square feet in size. 

Let's dissect this first one:  It's important that all marketing is contextual.  In other words, marketing that works for a Class C property may never work for a Class A property.  So if we are talking about a 4,000 square foot house, having a large master closet (in this market) is an absolute given.  Highlighting features that all other comparable properties have makes absolutely no sense, and frankly, just highlights the lack of interesting features in your own property.  This is the same as apartment communities boasting that they have a resort-style pool or a fitness center when every one of their comps does, as well.

Second, I would imagine that this marketing is really susceptible to insulting someone.  On this I could be wrong, as I'm not a woman, but it just seems so - is sexist the right term here?  "We all know the ladies love their shoes!"  It just seems so stereotypical, but maybe I'm reading into it too much.  I can say that I have seen the "shoes" approach work really well, but this one just seemed to fall flat.  That, and the fact that it doesn't have any awareness that the men may appreciate having a large closet, as well.

We toured probably 12+ properties, and I can't remember one house that didn't have the master bedroom located in the back.  In fact, I'm almost 100% confident that every single one of them had the master bedroom at the back of the house.  And yet, here it is listed as an "Included Feature"?  Why not say that the walls and kitchen are a "feature" too? 

I see a lot of the same problems with apartment communities, maybe even worse since we are often limited on space.  I see too many communities that don't really know what makes them special.  We often lament being seen as a commodity, but it seems that all-too-often we do that to ourselves. 

All in all, I love seeing cards like this in model apartments, as they help the exploration process for prospects walking through the unit.  But these, like all marketing, need to have greater awareness of what value the apartment and community are truly providing.