More Leads, Fewer Answers

The brightplace team has been running in-depth, one-on-one interviews with renters in the middle of an apartment search or just out of one. What follows is their real experience, in their own words.

Edgar found the buildings he wanted, reached out to a shortlist of six, and waited. Four days later, four of the six still hadn't responded. These were large, well-run communities in a major market. He was not a hard lead to close. He had a budget, a move date, and his shortlist. He was ready to go. And most of the buildings he'd chosen never responded.

I recently wrote that the lead is increasingly a lagging record of a decision made elsewhere, in AI tools, reviews, social feeds, and other surfaces operators don't control. But renters still have to reach out to actually tour an apartment. That is a key step operators control. According to renters we interviewed, this step is also breaking down.

What renters told us

We heard it repeatedly in our renter interviews: I reached out, and no one got back to me.

Edgar, relocating from New York to Miami for a remote job and looking at high-rise units, reached out to his six and gave them his details:

"I just give them my contact details hoping that they contact me, which none have contacted me. It's all automated stuff. It's been like four days."

He wasn't even asking for much. He just wanted to feel like there was a person somewhere on the other end. The automated systems, he said, felt outdated. What he wanted was to feel like he was moving forward. Instead he felt like he had accomplished nothing.

Zach, moving back to Philadelphia after a breakup and searching for a place to share, kept running into the same wall with places he genuinely liked:

"I'll send them a really nice message and then radio silence. And I'm like, all right, I guess I'm going back to the drawing board."

So he moved on, to other places, some of which were never on his original shortlist.

Tony, who searched for a full-service building in downtown Chicago and now runs most of his life through AI tools, had the flattest explanation of all:

"There's so few humans in those roles because of the AI, sometimes you wait so long to get somebody to even answer the call. And that drives me crazy."

Most calls go unanswered

The renters are describing something operators can measure. One operator recently shared with me that more than half of the calls into a leasing office go unanswered. Of the calls that do come in, only about a quarter are actual prospects. The rest are vendors, residents, wrong numbers, noise. The result is a lot of leasing-team attention consumed by calls that will never become leases, while some of the renters who actually matter are waiting behind them.

Multifamily got very good at capturing contact information and pushing more people into the funnel, as automation made that easier. But some of what gets captured was never really a lead, and the systems still struggle to tell casual interest from actual intent. The ready renter and the idle browser both land in the CRM, looking alike on the way in. Sorting them, and answering the ones that are real, used to be a person's job. That job has been thinned out, call centers especially, on the assumption the software now covers it.

Whether there's anyone to blame, frankly, doesn't matter. The system has lost touch with part of the human experience. Leasing teams are inundated with leads that were never real opportunities, plus resident calls, status updates, and data hygiene, and many of them have been cut down, call centers especially, on the assumption that automation absorbs the rest.

The stakes are higher than they used to be

Affordability has made the rental decision more consequential. When rent takes a bigger share of income, every question about cost carries more weight, and the hardest one to answer is a basic one: what this place will actually cost each month once you are living in it. Lesley, who searched Philadelphia and the South Jersey suburbs, ran straight into it:

"They were like, oh, everything's included, the only thing you pay is electricity. It ended up being I had to pay electricity, and water, and some other things that weren't really disclosed."

Renters can answer most of their own questions now through that collection of browser tabs. When one reaches out, it is usually because something real is still unresolved. When that inquiry goes unanswered, they get the answer somewhere else, from reviews, from AI tools, or another more accessible channel. Every unanswered question teaches renters to ask around you instead of asking you. You lose the lease, and you lose your place as somewhere worth contacting.

What renters actually want

None of this means renters want more human interaction, or that AI interactions are bad. Almost none of the renters we interviewed wanted to start with a leasing agent. They wanted to research on their own time, without being sold to. But when they had narrowed the field, had a real question, and were ready to move, nearly all of them wanted a person available, quickly. Leasing has become less human at exactly the moment the renter is most valuable.

Edgar is going to sign a lease somewhere. He blocked three days to tour in person, because he still has to stand inside a place to say yes. Some community is going to get him as a new resident. It will not be one of the communities that left him waiting.

Read the rest of the series

• Apartment Leads Have Disconnected From Intent
• Renter Interview, Part 2: Where Renters Actually Build Trust