By Jonathan Treble, founder and CEO of WithMe Inc.
Amenities shape the daily lives of a property’s residents. They are not simply marketing tools or leasing incentives, but a crucial component of what makes an apartment community feel like a home. However, not all amenities hold their value.
For example, a luxury golf simulator can cost anywhere from $25,000 to $150,000 to install. A rock climbing wall runs between $30 and $40 per square foot, meaning a 1,000-square-foot wall could total $30,000 to $40,000. Rooftop lounges and theater rooms can push costs even higher with maintenance and insurance fees.
Luxury amenities sound impressive. They look good in brochures. But how often do they fit into residents’ daily routines?
The right amenity package can give a property a competitive edge, but competition alone doesn’t justify an investment. The best amenities aren’t the ones that turn heads, but the practical ones that deliver consistent value and measurable financial returns.
Convenient Amenities Boost Retention
Every property manager wants amenities that impress on tours. However, the amenities that truly impact retention are the ones that residents rely on daily.
Resident retention matters. Every move-out costs a property approximately $4,000 per unit in lost rent, marketing and turnover expenses. The right amenities — which remove friction from daily life — can help chip away at those losses. Convenience breeds contentment, and contentment keeps residents renewing their leases.
And let’s not forget property staff. Practical amenities that are self-serve, tech-enabled and easy to manage don’t just make residents happy. They also lighten the load for your teams. Predictable pricing models and low-maintenance systems with practical pricing models can be crucial when you’re managing tight margins.
The Problem with Flashy Amenities
Luxury amenities sound good on paper, and it’s easy to get caught up in the wow factor. But novelty by itself does not generate a return on income (ROI).
High-cost amenities that residents don’t use drain resources — both up front and over time — without delivering real returns. If the golf simulator needs constant recalibration or your rooftop lounge consumes half the annual maintenance budget, are they really driving value?
When amenities start feeling like liabilities, they become anchors, rather than assets. While they may attract some prospective renters, the ROI doesn’t necessarily add up.
The Amenities Residents Actually Use
Tenants want amenities that support real life, not the ones designed to impress at move-in.
For instance, remote and hybrid work has permanently blurred the lines between home and office. The 2024 NMHC & Grace Hill Renter Preferences Survey Report drives the point home.
Renters reported that their top three most valuable amenities were free Wi-Fi (98 percent), self-serve wireless printing (90 percent) and beverage stations (88 percent), with reservable, private conference rooms (84 percent) also ranking close behind. These aren’t the flashiest amenities, but they’re the ones people use because they make life easier.
WithMe, Inc. has seen the same trend. In a recent survey of multifamily residents, 49 percent reported that coffee was their most-used technology-enabled amenity, more than package lockers (27 percent) and entertainment features (8 percent). One in three residents reported that they save at least $20 a month using WithMe’s self-serve coffee solution, SipWithMe.
The takeaway? Convenience wins every time.
The Measurable Benefits of Practical Amenities
The beauty of practical amenities is that they work for all members of a community — everyone from residents to property management teams and owners.
Amenities that fit into daily life deliver consistent value by serving more residents, creating fewer headaches for staff and protecting budgets from unpredictable costs. The right amenity package can drive retention, minimize operational friction, eliminate surprise costs and reduce the need for disruptive staff oversight.
Practical, tech-enabled amenities deliver the strongest ROI, according to WithMe’s ROI of Multifamily Amenities and Proptech e-book. The e-book includes a survey of approximately 100 WithMe clients, who provided insights regarding the cost, impact and speed to scale they experienced with different tech-enabled amenities.
The standouts according to the report were features such as wireless, self-serve coffee and printing management. These solutions were both relatively inexpensive to implement, required minimal maintenance and ranked highly with residents.
Smart technology features such as thermostats and appliances also were popular with tenants but generated a less substantial ROI. Automated package lockers and electric vehicle charging stations similarly received more moderate rankings. These luxury services are still valuable. However, they tend to incur higher installation and maintenance costs.
The proof is in the results. Asset Living switched to SipWithMe self-serve coffee at The Stack in College Station, Texas, which reduced coffee expenses by roughly $500 per month and saved the property $2,000 in printing costs within the first six months.
Village Green Property Management replaced property-owned printers with WithMe’s third-party printer management solution, which eliminated time-consuming maintenance issues and freed up staff to focus on resident service and operational improvements.
Be Practical to Boost Amenity ROI
None of this is to say that there’s no place for luxury amenities at a property. There’s always going to be demand for rooftop lounges and resort-style pools. But for long-term returns and resident satisfaction, the smartest investments are the ones that work as hard as your team.
Renters don’t need more extraneous bells and whistles. They need efficiency, convenience and amenities that truly integrate into their daily lives.
That’s where the real ROI is.
Jonathan Treble is the founder and CEO of WithMe Inc., a Chicago-based provider of technology-enabled amenities. WithMe’s amenities can be found in approximately 5,000 locations across the United States.