6 Ways to Create a Family-Friendly Apartment Community

Are you trying to attract more families to your rental properties? You can’t control where schools and other amenities are located. However, you can control other aspects of the property and your policies to create a family-friendly and community-oriented environment. 

There are plenty of reasons why you might be wanting to cultivate a family-friendly environment. Your reasons may be for reliable tenants, lease renewals, or an increase in interest. 

If so, you’ve come to the right place. Keep on reading to learn how you can foster a community that’ll show up on the radar of families looking to relocate.

• Set Aside Space for Outdoor Activities
• Build a Community Playground
• Create Indoor Community Play Spaces
• Make Community Resources Accessible
• On-Site Laundry Facilities
• Go the Extra Mile in Apartment Safety
• Final Thoughts

1. Set Aside Space for Outdoor Activities

Children are notoriously restless and rambunctious. When parents are looking to relocate their family, it’s not just the interior of the home that counts. What’s around it can matter even more. 

A property with space set aside for outdoor activities will immediately be attractive to a family. That’s because it allows for things such as a basketball hoop, a tire swing, or an asphalt area for outdoor games. Things such as sandboxes, monkey bars, and rope ladders may be of interest, as well.

Depending on your local and state laws, you may want to negotiate with the relevant parties to build a community pool or tennis court. Larger, shared amenities are a huge draw for families. They’re worth looking into if you’re the landlord of several properties within a specific neighborhood.

2. Build a Community Playground

It’s true that there’s an initial financial investment that you’ll need to make in order to install a community playground. However, the payoff you’ll receive is often worth the effort. 

A community playground is a huge draw for families. That’s because they’ll know their children will have a place to play nearby with other local children. 

A playground is a socially stimulating aspect of a neighborhood. It’s not just the children who benefit. 

Parents can also get to know one another and build a strong social fabric. That’s important to many families. 

3. Create Indoor Community Play Spaces

Not all places enjoy a warm temperate climate all year-round. If your properties are in areas that are frequently plagued by rain, snow, hail, storms, or other adverse weather patterns, consider catering to the need for a play space by creating it indoors. 

The options are vast. You can create a mini arcade, an indoor jungle gym, a pool, or even something as simple as a community playroom. Stock it with a few toys, books and board games to cater to families.

4. Make Community Resources Accessible

What do parents need? While the answer to that question varies from person to person, most of them are in search of a good local daycare, babysitters, and family-friendly community events. 

Advertise these things, whether you do so bulletin-board style or online. Keeping those in the community connected and in the know will foster a healthy neighborhood that families love being a part of. 

Access could also come in the form of community email chains and Facebook groups. By setting up different ways for the community to stay in touch, organize, and help out, you’re also setting the standard for involvement and engagement with one another. 

5. On-Site Laundry Facilities

Parents have busy schedules. Between work and child care, there’s little room for doing chores, let alone recreational activities. 

Make life a bit easier by understanding what would help parents on-the-go. On-site laundry facilities are a big plus, for example. 

Busy people don’t want to take their dirty clothes off-site and deal with the hassle of waiting for their loads to finish at the laundromat. Even more frustrating is having to commute back and forth. Save families time and expenses by simply offering washer and dryer units. 

6. Go the Extra Mile in Apartment Safety

If there’s one thing all parents worry about, it’s apartment safety. Their little ones are their top priority. Keeping them safe isn’t something people can compromise on. 

You can ease their mind by installing good lighting, for example, in parking areas. You may particularly want to do that near entrances, exits, or turns where cars might be going faster. 

Within the home, there should be fire and carbon monoxide detection. There should also be a fire escape route if the unit is in an apartment building.

Install proper guard rails on elevated spaces. Those include balconies on windows, stairs, and community pools. 

Safety can also be harnessed by the community as a whole by setting expectations, for example, that children should be supervised throughout the community. People should especially supervise children on play gyms and other indoor/outdoor community spaces.

Final Thoughts

The benefits of creating a family-friendly community are worth putting in the effort to attract them. Ranging from more frequent lease renewals and reliable tenants, a community-oriented space is good for all parties involved. 

Investing in the creation of play spaces, community involvement and outreach, and child safety will increase the value of what you have to offer.