Apartment Discount Offered by United Dominion Realty

Book Online and Save... Each month three million people search online apartment locating services for rental information. Yet pricing and unit availability data is rarely up-to-date, often lagging two to three months, depending upon how frequently property managers refresh their information. This always frustrated Mike Mueller, one of the founders of SpringStreet, now part of HomeStore.

So Mueller's new company, Realty Data Trust has developed an application to enable apartment managers to publish rental data "in real-time." Launched just three weeks ago, here's how it works. You download his software at VaultWare and install on your computer, which takes a couple of minutes. Once a day VaultWare automatically extracts the latest pricing and availability data from your property management program and sends it to Realty Data Trust. Now it's easy to make this data accessible to the public at the owner's web site or an online service.

Want to check it out? Go to United Dominion Realty Trust. Click the "Find an Apartment Home Fast" link toward the bottom of the page. Click "Check Availability" near the "$50 Off for Online Leases" link. Click "Sierra Palms" at the top of the list. Click "Floor Plans" to the upper right. Click "Lantana" at the top of the list. Click "Check Availability" in the middle of the page. Now you can filter the units (if you want) by fireplace or garage rental and compare specific units to each other. If you then click "Request to Hold," you begin the application and credit screening process.

To take advantage of the $50 move-in discount, you would click the "Internet Special" at the bottom of the page. You will now pay a $19.95 convenience fee (similar to a Ticketron fee) and receive a reservation confirmation number. Every five minutes, Realty Data Trust checks for new reservations and sends a pop-up window directly to the manager's computer. Wow, this is slick. Looks like the multifamily industry might join the airline and hospitality industries with real-time pricing.

--Peter Pike