Latest · Renter behaviour

Renters Want Video Before They'll Even Call

October 6, 2026

30 Lines is out with a 2027 playbook arguing that renters now expect video before they'll inquire at all, and that a lightweight video plan should sit higher in your budget than another round of ad-tech.

Here's the part that should actually bother you: most communities are still spending real money to get a shopper to the website, then handing them a hallway photo and a floor plan PDF and hoping that counts as a first impression. It doesn't. People scroll past text. They stop for a person walking through a unit saying "here's what you'd actually see every day." You don't need a crew for that. You need a phone, a leasing agent who isn't camera-shy, and thirty seconds of the parking situation nobody puts in the listing.

The budget argument is the real hook here. Everyone wants to fund another retargeting pixel or a smarter bid strategy before they'll fund video, because video feels soft and ad-tech feels measurable. But a shopper who watches sixty seconds of your leasing office walking them through a two-bed is a warmer lead than one who clicked an ad and bounced. That's not a vibe, that's a shorter path to a tour.

Start small: one video per floor plan, one amenity walkthrough, one "meet your leasing team" clip, all native to the platform you're posting on instead of recycled across five. Track it by tour requests mentioning the video, not views. Views are a vanity metric wearing a KPI's clothes.

Source: 30 Lines, October 5, 2026