October 2024 Newsletter

Market Minute

Top In-Demand Amenities

As owners and developers continue to look for the “best bang for [their] buck”, we are often asked which amenities are truly the most in-demand and which are most utilized. We recently conducted a survey of our property managers and asked them to rank amenities from most to least in-demand. They based their decisions according to the utilization they were seeing at their properties as well as resident and prospect feedback.



The following highlights some of our findings:

  • By overwhelming majority, pool/hot tubs were most in-demand. 63% of managers surveyed had it as the most solicited amenity. Pool/hot tub made up 47% of total 1st or 2nd place slots.

  • This was followed by fitness centers as the next most utilized or sought after amenity. 16% of those surveyed had it as the top amenity and 47% had it in the #2 slot.

  • Dog park/Pet areas, Clubhouse and BBQ areas then followed with fairly even distributions.




Broken down by the state’s major markets we see that:

  • Pools/hot tubs or fitness centers make up one or both of the top 2 amenities in each major market.

  • We observe some unique cases where pet areas and clubhouses account for the 2nd most in-demand amenity in the greater Salt Lake market and the Provo major market, respectively.

  • In Idaho Falls we still see Pool/hot tub as the most in-demand amenity overall, but with playground a close second.





We also polled our managers on any additional amenities that weren't listed in the ranking above:

  • The desire for a community garden appears in multiple different markets.

  • We observed that game rooms are also in-demand; with one manager mentioning that: “We have a game room with gaming consoles that gets used 3-4 times a week.”

  • The word cloud below outlines a few of the additional amenities that were mentioned from the managers:


‘Nxt Level’

Our New Business Intelligence Tool

We are pleased to announce the rollout of our new and improved business intelligence tool. Six years ago, Nxt was a trailblazer in the multifamily management industry with the rollout of the first iteration of its business intelligence tool (Nxt Dashboard). We have spent months gathering feedback and building this tool to assist our partners and the site teams in driving success at the properties we manage.

As a company, we pride ourselves on being able to use quality data to make data-driven decisions. The Nxt Dashboard has become a daily tool for our employees and has fostered success, new strategies, and transparency for everyone involved. Every community owner under Nxt’s management gets full access to this business intelligence dashboard. If you would like to see a demo, click the button below to schedule a demo. We would love to show you what it can do!

Schedule your demo

Ask the Editor

Question: What is your outlook on the market in general for the next 12-18 months? What trends are you seeing?

Answer: Great question! I’d like to share some statistics from the Gardner Institute which will help answer that:

  • From 2013 to 2023 Utah ranks 11th in the country in numeric employment increase and 1st in percent increase at 34.5%.

  • Utah has had over 2% employment growth year over year, higher than the 1.5% national average.

  • From 2012 to 2022 Utah ranks 12th in the country in numeric population increase and 1st in percent increase at 21.8%.

  • So far in 2024, there have been 622 building permits for apartments in Salt Lake City and the surrounding suburban areas. This is down significantly from 3,122 in 2023.

In summary, Utah continues to be one of the fastest growing states in the country with in-migration coming primarily from Nevada, Arizona and California. The decrease in permits submitted and issued year over year should allow vacant units and upcoming deliveries across the state to be absorbed. Noticeable changes to market conditions including rents, concessions and vacancies to be seen by Q3/Q4 2025—with decreased concessions already being seen in some markets in the state.

As a reminder, feel free to ask any questions about the apartment world to sales@nxtmgt.com and we would love to feature and answer the question in next month’s newsletter.

Until next time,

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November 2024 Newsletter

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September 2024 Newsletter