The Apartment Department

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This week, Anne and Chris sit down with Martin Canchola, co-founder and chief strategy officer of Apartment SEO and founder of Multifamily Builders Club, for a conversation about how apartment search is evolving and what multifamily marketers should actually be paying attention to right now.

Martin explains why many of the SEO fundamentals marketers have heard about for years, like local listings, reputation management, FAQs, schema markup, and helpful content, are becoming critical again as platforms like Google, ChatGPT, YouTube, Reddit, and Bing reshape how renters discover apartments online.

The conversation explores:

• Why Google Business Profile and Yelp still matter
• How reviews and sentiment influence visibility
• Why video may become one of the biggest opportunities in multifamily marketing
• How marketers can experiment with emerging tools without getting overwhelmed
• What operators should prioritize first as search behavior continues to change

Martin also shares the vision behind the Multifamily Builders Club and why curiosity, experimentation, and AI fluency are becoming increasingly valuable skills for multifamily marketers.

This episode is packed with practical takeaways for anyone trying to understand where apartment search is headed and how to stay visible as the landscape evolves.

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This week on The Apartment Department, Anne Baum and Chris Johnson sit down with Brian Miller, Director of Partner Experience and Engagement at Zillow Rentals, for a conversation about what marketing teams are really navigating right now.

Drawing from conversations with operators and marketers across the country, Brian shares the patterns he’s seeing across the industry, including affordability pressure, rising concessions, operational complexity, and changing renter behavior.

In this episode, they discuss:

• Why nearly 40% of rental listings nationally now include concessions
• Markets where concessions are appearing on more than 60% of listings
• Zillow data showing that nearly 1 in 13 for-sale shoppers also engage with rentals
• How renters are using technology and AI to evaluate communities differently
• Why communities need their online presence to match the actual resident experience
• The operational reality behind managing apartment marketing today
• How marketers are pulling data from multiple systems just to understand market position and property performance
• The growing conversation around enterprise-wide AI strategy inside multifamily organizations

The conversation also explores how marketing teams can better communicate what makes a community valuable, why generic messaging is becoming less effective, and how operators are thinking about flexibility, speed, and transparency for today’s renter.

If you work in multifamily marketing, operations, or proptech, this episode offers a grounded conversation about the challenges teams are trying to solve right now and how the industry is adapting.

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This week, Anne and Chris welcome back Jude Chiy, founder and CEO of Flamingo, for one of their most candid and wide-ranging conversations yet. Jude opens up about the early struggles that shaped his leadership style, including hiring mistakes that pushed him to completely rethink how he builds and manages a team, and how those hard lessons led him to build a company where every role, every feature, and every decision ties back to one metric: resident retention.

Jude breaks down the performance management framework that runs Flamingo, including how he writes job descriptions around outcomes instead of tasks, why he doesn't care how long something takes as long as the result is achieved, and how giving employees a clear north star actually empowers them to push back and prioritize better.

The conversation also gets into the evolution of Flamingo itself, from a wellness and fitness platform called Hello Healthy to a full resident retention suite, and what Jude learned from walking the streets of Chicago for four months talking to property managers and residents. Plus, why he believes consistent resident communication is one of the fastest ways to improve retention, what authentic resident-driven engagement looks like, and why brand may be the most important long-term advantage any multifamily operator can build.

If you've ever struggled to get your team aligned and moving in the same direction, this episode is worth your time.

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Marketing and operations are aligned around the same goal: stronger performance across the portfolio. In practice, that alignment often takes shape through reactive and responsive workflows.

In this episode, Justin Godwin, Director of Marketing Strategy and Innovation at Cushman & Wakefield, breaks down what it actually takes to evolve that dynamic at scale.

From restructuring a lean marketing team supporting hundreds of properties to redefining marketing as an extension of the leasing function, this conversation gets into the operational reality behind making marketing more proactive, not just responsive.

We talk about how marketing teams operate in response to requests, what it takes to shift that dynamic, and how trust evolves when marketing starts showing up with data, recommendations, and a point of view instead of waiting for direction.

The core shift is moving marketing from reactive execution to proactive performance support.

This is a conversation about systems, communication, and what changes when marketing is structured to drive outcomes, not just respond to them.

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What role does visual content actually play in apartment performance—and why are most operators still treating it like a one-off asset instead of a system?

In this episode, Anne Baum and Chris Johnson sit down with Izzy Carunungan of LCP (Lights, Camera, Pixels) to unpack how photos, 3D tours, and unit-level media are evolving from marketing “nice-to-haves” into operational infrastructure.

They explore how the rise of sight-unseen renting, inconsistent unit upgrades, and fragmented property data are forcing a new approach—one where visual content becomes standardized, scalable, and deeply integrated into the leasing journey.

This conversation goes beyond content creation to examine:

• Why your website should function as a true source of truth for prospects
• The operational challenges behind maintaining accurate, unit-level visuals
• How inconsistency in media impacts trust, conversion, and leasing velocity
• What it looks like to treat content as a system—not a campaign

If you’re thinking about centralization, standardization, or how to better connect marketing to operations, this episode offers a practical lens into where the industry is heading.

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Marketing cannot operate in a silo. When strategy lives in one department and execution lives in another, performance breaks down.

In this episode, Paul McClain, founder of AiinaT Brand Solutions, joins us to share how he helps bridge the gap between marketing strategy and site teams. From digital audits and attribution conversations to middle funnel exposure and renter behavior shifts, Paul breaks down what happens when marketing fluency extends beyond the corporate office.

This conversation is not about adding more to a site team’s plate. It is about creating alignment. When teams understand the why behind the work, collaboration improves and results compound.

If you are thinking about performance as a shared responsibility, not a departmental function, this episode will challenge and inspire you.

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In this episode, Jillian Fickert of Buckingham Companies joins Anne Baum and Chris Johnson for a practical conversation about what it really takes to make marketing a trusted, strategic function inside a multifamily organization.

They explore how marketing leaders can move beyond the “cost center” label by building credibility through transparency, shared language, and clear performance visibility. Jillian shares specific ways her team creates alignment across marketing, asset management, and operations—and why those relationships matter just as much as the tactics.

You’ll hear about:

• How to reposition marketing as a business driver, not an expense
• Creating standardized budget guides and shared glossaries to reduce friction
• Running inclusive weekly performance calls that bring teams together
• Aligning on shared KPIs to support operational goals
• Breaking down silos to create a more cohesive customer journey

The big takeaway: long-term marketing impact isn’t just about better campaigns—it’s about strong cross-functional relationships, a common understanding of the business, and consistent communication.

If you’re trying to build stronger trust between marketing and operations, this episode offers a clear, actionable starting point.

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In this episode of The Apartment Department, Anne and Chris sit down with D.D. Cobb, Regional Director at Apartments.com, to unpack how the apartment search has fundamentally changed.

Today’s renters are making decisions long before they ever tour a property. Powered by AI, mobile-first search, and radically different expectations around transparency, the traditional prospect journey is being replaced by a digital-first experience where research happens early and intent forms fast.

D.D. shares what this shift means for multifamily marketers, including why lead volume is becoming a less reliable metric, how exposure and engagement better reflect influence, and what operators need to understand about fee transparency, mobile optimization, and visual content. The conversation also grounds the future of marketing in a simple truth: even as technology evolves, fundamentals like comfort, air conditioning, and pet-friendly living still matter.

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In this episode Anne and Chris sit down with Kara Rafferty, National Director of Sales at Apartment Geo-Fencing, for a long-anticipated conversation on what collaboration in multifamily really looks like.

Kara brings a wide-ranging perspective shaped by years on the vendor side of the industry, deep involvement with apartment associations, and a passion for building relationships that go beyond transactions. The conversation explores the shared responsibility between vendors and operators, the importance of transparency and respect, and why defaulting to blame or rigid marketing templates often misses the bigger picture.

The group also dives into Kara’s approach to brand awareness, including the role of streaming TV, geo-fencing, and video in reaching renters earlier in their decision-making process. Throughout the discussion, she challenges marketers to move from “checkers to chess” by prioritizing creativity, storytelling, and differentiation in an increasingly crowded landscape.

The episode wraps with a look at the Multifamily Marketing Hive, a community Kara helped co-found to encourage open learning and idea sharing without a sales agenda, reinforcing the central theme of collaboration as a driver of better outcomes for the industry.

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In this episode, Chris and Anne speak with Tamela Coval and Tami Siewruk, two of the creators of Multifamily NEXT, a series of hands-on workshops designed to integrate artificial intelligence into the apartment industry. The guests explain that their "hackathon-style" events are moving beyond abstract concepts to help property owners and executives achieve AI fluency and operational efficiency. They emphasize that while AI will not replace humans, it requires a human-in-the-loop approach to maintain brand voice, manage data security, and avoid the pitfalls of "garbage in, garbage out" information. The discussion highlights the necessity for leadership and onsite teams to evolve alongside technology to prevent job displacement. By partnering with vetted implementation providers, the initiative aims to replace fragmented "Frankenstein" tech stacks with streamlined, AI-powered strategies for marketing, leasing, and renewals. The future of AI for real estate professionals is to embrace AI literacy as a standard requirement for the modern workplace.