Apartment Website RFP and Scope of Work
A request for proposal written for apartment communities rather than for generic business websites. Copy the whole thing, fill in six blanks, and send it to as many vendors as you like. Including our competitors.
Why this exists. Generic website RFP templates do not ask about property management integration, availability feeds, listing syndication, floor plan pages, resident portal handoff, or who ends up owning the domain. Those are the six things that go wrong on apartment projects. This version asks about all of them.
Before you send it: six facts to fill in
Every vendor will ask for these, and having them ready is the difference between comparable quotes and a pile of guesses.
- Unit count and mix by bedroom count
- Target certificate of occupancy or first move-in date, or "stabilized" if the property is already operating
- Property management system of record, and which modules are live
- Who holds the domain registration and DNS today
- How many distinct floor plans
- Who receives the leads, and who approves the spend
Request for proposal: [PROPERTY NAME] website
Issued by: [COMPANY]
Contact for questions: [NAME, EMAIL]
Proposals due: [DATE]
Target launch: [DATE OR WINDOW]
1. Project summary
[COMPANY] is seeking proposals to design and build a website for [PROPERTY NAME], a [UNIT COUNT] unit [conventional / luxury / student / senior / affordable] apartment community in [CITY, STATE]. The property is [under construction with an anticipated certificate of occupancy in DATE / currently operating]. The website will be the primary marketing destination for prospective residents and must support tour requests and online applications.
2. Scope of work
Proposals should include the following, and should state clearly anything that is excluded.
- Custom design reflecting [PROPERTY NAME] branding, including a style direction for review before build
- Mobile-first responsive build, with a stated target for mobile page speed
- Floor plan pages or sections covering [NUMBER] distinct plans, each with square footage, availability presentation, and a direct action
- Photo and media galleries, including a structure that accommodates photography added after launch
- Amenities, neighborhood, and community information pages
- Tour request and contact forms, with lead delivery to [DESTINATION]
- Online application handoff to our property management system
- Search engine fundamentals: unique titles and descriptions, structured data, XML sitemap, and analytics installation
- Content entry of copy and images we supply, with a stated limit if one applies
- Training or documentation for our team
3. Property management system requirements
Our system of record is [RENTMERCHANT / YARDI / REALPAGE / APPFOLIO / ENTRATA / AMSI / OTHER]. Please state, specifically:
- Which of our systems you have integrated with previously, and on how many properties
- Which modules must be active on our account for your proposed approach to work
- How availability and pricing will be displayed, whether by direct feed or by linking into the system's hosted pages, and how often it refreshes
- How online applications will be handled, and confirmation that applications continue to post into our system
- Confirmation that existing residents keep their current portal logins and payment history
- Any integration, feed, or license fee, whether it is one-time or recurring, and who pays it
- How online rent collection connects, and which platforms you have wired to a website before. RentMerchant, AppFolio, Entrata and Yardi all handle this differently, so name the ones you have actually done
- For new construction: what the site can display before units exist in the system, and what changes once they do
4. Listing syndication
State whether your proposal includes feeds to internet listing sites, which ones, and the expected timeline to go live. Note that some listing platforms require approval before a feed is built and a testing period of several weeks before it is active, so please account for this in your schedule rather than treating syndication as instant.
5. Accessibility
The website must be accessible. Accessibility will be measured against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Version 2.2, Level AA. State how you build to this standard and how you test. If your approach relies on a third-party accessibility overlay or widget added to a finished site, say so explicitly, as that is not equivalent to a site built to the standard.
6. Fair housing
All content and imagery must comply with fair housing advertising requirements, including the display of the Equal Housing Opportunity logo or statement. Confirm your familiarity with these requirements.
7. Ownership and transition
This section is not negotiable and should be answered directly.
- The domain will be registered to, or transferred to, an account controlled by [OWNING ENTITY]. Confirm agreement.
- Confirm that DNS control will be available to us on request.
- On final payment, all intellectual property in the delivered website, including source code, is assigned to [OWNING ENTITY]. Confirm agreement, or state your alternative terms plainly.
- The analytics property will be created in, or transferred to, an account we own.
- Google Business Profile ownership remains with [OWNING ENTITY].
- Confirm that we may export our lead history at any time, including on termination.
- State the notice period required to end the engagement and any cost associated with leaving.
Note: intellectual property does not transfer automatically. Absent an express assignment, the party who created the work generally retains ownership of it. Similarly, registering a domain grants an exclusive right of use rather than outright ownership, so the account it sits in matters.
8. Commercial terms
Please provide:
- A fixed price for the scope above, and an hourly or fixed rate for work outside it
- Whether the engagement is one-time or a subscription, and if a subscription, the total cost over 36 months
- Whether any agreement auto-renews, and the notice required to prevent renewal
- Ongoing hosting, maintenance, and support costs, stated separately from the build
- The cost of a representative post-launch change, such as adding a floor plan
9. Schedule and delivery
- Proposed timeline from kickoff to launch, with milestones
- A written definition of done for launch
- What you require from us, and by when
- For new construction: how the schedule adapts if our certificate of occupancy moves by three to six months
- Any warranty period after launch, and response times during it
10. References
Provide three references for apartment communities of comparable size, including at least one on our property management system, with contact details we may use.
11. Evaluation
Proposals will be evaluated on demonstrated apartment and property management integration experience, total cost over three years, ownership and transition terms, schedule fit, accessibility approach, and references.
12. Submission
Submit proposals to [NAME, EMAIL] by [DATE]. Questions may be submitted to the same address by [DATE].
Three things worth knowing
Send it to at least three vendors. Ownership groups increasingly expect three competitive bids and a documented reason for the selection. Identical questions are what make three replies comparable.
The ownership section is the one that sorts vendors. Every vendor will answer sections one through six similarly. Section seven is where the answers diverge, and it is the section that decides what you are left holding in three years.
Use it against us too. This template is free and unbranded on purpose. If a competitor answers section seven better than we do, you should hire them.
Next: the one-page recommendation memo for writing up the result, and 22 questions to ask on the calls.
Want us to answer it?
Send us the filled-in template and we will reply with a fixed price and a written scope.