Apartment Locators Balance Transparency With TikTok Trends As Their Influence Expands

Andrew Mason walks through a three-story loft penthouse at The Drakestone high-rise in Downtown Dallas, armed with his smartphone. He admits it’s one of the coolest penthouses in the city, but he’s there to find out whether other apartment locators shared misleading pricing information about it on TikTok.

One video featured the unit with text saying “Lofts starting at $1,565.” The actual unit costs almost three times as much, Mason says in his video, which has more than 290,000 views. 

Mason started his transparency-focused TikTok series with the tagline “I want to know if what they posted was a lie” after social media users rushed into the apartment locating industry. Many resorted to “crappy marketing tactics” in hopes of going viral and securing business, he said. 

For landlords and property managers, the rise in the use of social media-featured apartment locators can result in mismatched prospective tenant expectations and more fees paid. But industry professionals said it's a side effect of the modern apartment rental experience, and locators’ work provides leads that secure leases. 

“A large portion of our renters discover, evaluate and decide on apartments through Instagram, TikTok and Google before they ever contact a property,” said Lauren Eurto, Greystar’s senior managing director of conventional owned assets. “If you're not visible in those channels with quality content, you're invisible to a significant share of active renters.”

Apartment locators typically connect prospective tenants with complexes at no cost to the renter and are rewarded with a payout from the property in the range of the first month’s rent. They are required to hold a standard Texas real estate license. The Texas Real Estate Commission does not require disclosure of the license's intended use, so it does not track the number of apartment locators in the state.

The Apartment Association of Greater Dallas estimated that hundreds of apartment locators operate in Dallas-Fort Worth alone.

Greystar told Bisnow that 6.5% of its leases this year at Dallas, Houston and Austin properties came from apartment locators, with a lead-to-net lease rate of 12%, one of its top single lead source averages.

Fogelman, a multifamily investment and property management firm, stated that 1.3% of its Texas portfolio leads this year have come through apartment locators, but they represent almost 20% of applications and 15% of move-ins. 

The apartment locating industry is more prevalent in Texas cities than in some other major markets across the country, said Eliza Parker, executive director of marketing and communications for Smart City Locating, a Dallas-founded company that’s grown exponentially and expanded to other states since its 2013 founding. 

Smart City has more than 151,000 followers on its Dallas, Houston and Austin channels on TikTok and another 396,400 on its corresponding Instagram pages. The Dallas TikTok channel alone has more than 1.8 million likes on its videos. 

“Back in 2013, social media, as a lead-generating space, was not that much of a thing,” Parker said. “We were one of the first locators to really see the potential there and create the blueprint of a strategy that I think so many other locators utilize today.” 

But that strategy has to keep up with social media updates and algorithms. The current state of apartment locator social media content is almost like an arms race, she said. If one locator posts a video of a penthouse with studio pricing, they could gain the most views because it’s so powerful of a visual and price. That level of engagement is exciting, but Parker said it creates a new standard that other locators on social media then have to chase.

Unfortunately, misleading and confusing information in social media posts is something that Keeley Kourvelas, who launched her Dallas-based apartment locator company, CPK Collective, in March, said she sees multiple times a week. 

Locators like Smart City and CPK Collective try to maintain accuracy as much as possible. But the process isn’t always straightforward. Sometimes, the complex or locator wants to advertise pricing on a certain unit, but that unit is not available to film in, Parker said.

“We have a philosophy here of ‘We do our best and try to get as accurate as we can,’” Parker said. “But we also won't not advertise opportunities that we know our clients will love, simply because we don't have the right photos.” 

The landscape of how apartments are marketed has changed dramatically over the years, said Michael Knight, executive vice president of Houston-based property management company Better World Properties. 

“There continues to be a lot of bait-and-switch in the apartment marketing business,” he said.

Smart City ensures its clients’ expectations are grounded in reality before making contact with a property, and it maintains good relationships with property managers, Parker said. But it’s seen the consequences of locators who don’t do the same.

“We have received property emails saying, ‘Hey, can you actually not advertise our property because, unfortunately, we're just getting a lot of prospects who don't understand,’” Parker said. 

Texas Real Estate Commission rules prohibit misleading advertising, but they focus on the inclusion of the broker's name. TREC cannot provide a determination on whether any specific advertisement or video would violate commission rules without reviewing all relevant facts and context, TREC said in a statement to Bisnow.

“However, real estate license holders in Texas are subject to the advertising and misrepresentation provisions of the Texas Real Estate License Act and TREC rules. In general, advertisements must not be misleading or misrepresent the properties, services, or pricing being offered, and license holders are responsible for ensuring that all advertising is truthful and not deceptive,” the statement said. 

Mason said he’d like to see more regulation in the apartment locating industry, which feels “much more Wild West” right now, with people doing whatever it takes to generate interaction and leads. He had hoped his series would expose "crappy" marketing tactics and let people know to be on the lookout, but it’s actually been a lead driver, too.

“It has caused a lot of people to reach out to me because they see that, ‘OK, he's telling the truth. I've been burned. I don't want to jump through eight hoops just to get the name of this one apartment complex,’” he said. 

Texas markets are saturated with locators, so Smart City relies on its client service to create a differential, Parker said. It offers postlease support, like helping renters set up their internet and utility services.

And while most apartment complexes in Texas are locator-friendly and offer compensation — especially as they work their way through a supply wave — the compensation doesn’t weigh into their placement of clients.

“We are happy to place a client in a place where we don't get paid, because our goal is to ensure that they find a place that works for them,” Parker said. “That level of service, I would say, is our primary differential.”