Early Thoughts on SearchGPT for Apartment Searches

ChatGPT officially launched its search engine, SearchGPT, last week. It takes a very simplified approach compared to Google’s current bloated search experience … which isn’t a bad thing.

I put it through its paces over the past few days to see how it did when it came to searching for an apartment. Here's how it did.

Search Results

All of the responses were very descriptive and conversational. The answers are generally high quality, yet simple. There are no ads or promoted content (yet).

One thing I noticed right away: It’s device-aware. Results are quite different between desktop and mobile. The results are often quite limited — usually only about 10 options on desktop, with no option to page through more results. Mobile responses offer even fewer results, presumably for brevity — I was given only three or four options on most mobile searches. Desktop certainly feels like a more complete search experience so far.

Limiting options has benefits; it will likely help limit choice paralysis. (It’s a far cry from the hundreds or thousands of options returned in most ILS results.) That said, it doesn’t seem to help much for early-journey searches where prospects want to see more options.

Just like with regular ChatGPT, you can chat with the bot and ask follow-up questions to your initial results. The conversational follow-ups provide solid, detailed answers.

There are clear website links out, particularly on the desktop experience. Most property searches on desktop linked to both the Google Business listing for the property and a website link (usually an ILS). On mobile, the links out are less prominent, but they usually linked directly to the property website. Every search response called out specific communities, but the results on mobile only provided direct links to the community websites about half the time.

A note here: Content matters. SearchGPT doesn’t just rank your homepage; it often serves up deep links to the pages and blog posts that it believes best answer the searcher’s question. If someone is looking for pet-friendly communities or properties with an easy commute to the airport, it will find and surface that content. Properties that go deeper to answer specific questions and search queries will have a clear advantage.

The results appear to be very focused on larger apartment communities, which isn’t good for anyone looking for a home for rent or very small properties. Scattered site property managers will have a tough time promoting their rentals through Search GPT for now.

Location-Based Searches

SearchGPT doesn’t always respond accurately to location-based searches like “apartments near me.”

It got my location right on desktop, but my test on mobile gave me results from San Antonio. When I asked why, SearchGPT said, “the browser results were tied to that city.” (I’m presuming it’s running its searches through AT&T’s mobile network here.) Interestingly, this was one of the few searches that returned results with “starting at” prices. (More on this next.) It then recommended I check Zillow and Realtor.com for local results (without providing direct links to either of those sites).

Most responses did not include any kind of map-based results. There’s no concept of local listings or any direct way to share business info like your address, phone number, or office/self-guided touring hours.

Based on what I’ve seen so far, I’d expect lots of SearchGPT searches to be followed by searches in Google and Google/Apple Maps to find that info once someone decides they want to take the next step with you.

SearchGPT isn't ideal for those who are ready to buy now. Instead, it functions better as an “expert reviewer” that helps the shopper learn more about a community ... but the prospect has to take additional steps when they're ready to take the next step with that property.

Local searches for other industries sometimes include map-based results (so expect that to come to apartment searches at some point), but even those pins currently link out to Google Business profiles.

Pricing and Availability

SearchGPT isn’t able to return current pricing or availability yet, even when asked directly. In some cases, it cited ranges like “Offers 1-2 bedroom apartments ranging from $1,049-$1,199 per month.” In many examples, it simply referred me to check the website for the latest pricing, availability, and current specials.

Lead Attribution

Attribution is murky at best. Some responses offer clear links out to the property website, while others link to the Google Business listing instead. Still other responses deliver a lot of info with no source links at all. You’re going to have a really tough time seeing a full picture of how SearchGPT is contributing to your website and foot traffic.

Regardless, it’s worth adding ChatGPT to your source list if your software platform requires a predefined list. (They shouldn’t. Ever. Feel free to reach out if you want to know why.)

Multimedia

There’s no multimedia yet for apartment-related results, so the results are just a wall of text for now. (OpenAI did show photo galleries in their demo example, which used SearchGPT to plan a travel itinerary.) I’m sure this will evolve over time, but for now, it’s a stark difference compared to Google’s universal search results that integrate images and videos.

Brand Messaging

There’s no way to control the response (beyond the content that GPT picks up from your website and other sources), plus SearchGPT is very clearly tailoring its responses to the specific shopper. While this provides a far more personalized experience, it’s essentially a third-party that is sharing its own view of your community and whether it could be a good fit for the shopper.

I don’t think there are any Fair Housing concerns if it’s not a marketing channel you control, particularly if you abide by the equal housing guidelines in all of the marketing channels you do control.

SEO

There are certainly some steps you can take to help optimize your brand for AI bots and search. Like I mentioned before, creating the right content to answer your prospect’s questions matters more than ever. And brand matters more, too — be sure you’re associating your name with that content frequently so the AI models pick up your community names and connect it to their responses.

That said, given the variety of ways people interact with ChatGPT/SearchGPT and its ability to deeply personalize its responses, it seems like it's going to be exceedingly difficult to track search visibility/rankings in any meaningful way today.

Overall Impressions

SearchGPT provides a clean, ad-free (at least for now) search experience. However, its current answers fall short when it comes to presenting pricing, availability, specials, or even basic business info. (Then again, you don't get any of those in any structured format in TikTok, either ... and people are still using that.)

I could see renters using SearchGPT for research and info-gathering, but it’s not ready to close the deal on its own yet. While you can easily gather info about various communities, the lack of business profiles (a la Google Business) means that “zero-click” results aren’t really an option here—shoppers get enough info to send them in a direction, but they'll need to go elsewhere when they’re ready to reach out.

As a result, you can expect to see more organic traffic to your website and Google Maps as natural next steps for prospects who want to see more and contact the property to book a tour or see pricing.

Is it going to beat Google? Not yet.

But SearchGPT does provide a clean, comprehensive search experience that is a radical departure from both current Google search and ILS results. And OpenAI is iterating rapidly, so expect these results to get much better over time. In terms of product execution and user experience, the result quality is good and helpful, but it’s missing a lot of key details that most renters will want to see as they move toward a final decision.

Need help boosting your results for your properties? Whether it's driving traffic through organic/AI search and paid advertising, or increasing the efficiency of your entire marketing stack, 30 Lines is here to help. Message us, or contact us today for a free intro consultation.