Multifamily has spent years asking what amenity to build next. I think there is another question we need to ask first: Are we creating enough value from the amenities we already have?

Picture a beautiful resident lounge.

Designer furniture. Statement lighting. Multiple seating zones. Maybe a fireplace, coworking tables and a television wall.

It photographs beautifully.

It appears prominently on the property website.

The leasing team points it out on every tour.

Ownership invested significantly in building it.

There is only one problem:

Residents rarely use it.

Is it still a successful amenity?

That question has been on my mind as the multifamily industry continues to rethink what residents want from the spaces beyond their apartment homes.

Fitness centers have become more sophisticated. Coworking spaces have evolved. Rooftop decks, pet amenities, podcast rooms, wellness spaces and increasingly specialized offerings continue to expand the definition of the modern apartment amenity.

But I believe our next competitive advantage may have less to do with what we build and much more to do with what happens after we build it. 

An Amenity Existing Is Not the Same as an Amenity Creating Value

A recent Forbes article on modern multifamily amenity decisions explored how developers and operators are increasingly using resident feedback, market analysis, demographics and programming to determine which amenities will create the greatest value.

One point particularly stood out to me: amenities can help create community, and intentional resident programming can strengthen the connections that influence renewals and referrals.

That moves the conversation beyond the physical space.

And I think we should take it even further.

Because an amenity can be:

beautiful but underused,

popular but poorly maintained,

frequently used but completely undifferentiated,

highly valued by residents but barely mentioned in marketing,

or heavily promoted by marketing while failing to deliver the experience residents were promised.

All of those scenarios reveal something important:

Amenity presence is not amenity performance.

Ashley Effinger

Grace Hill's amenity research has similarly examined the relationship between amenity satisfaction, actual usage and rental outcomes rather than treating every amenity as equally valuable.

The industry is getting better at asking which amenities matter.

The next question is:

How effectively are we converting those amenities into value?

The Missing Middle Between Amenity and ROI

When we discuss amenity ROI, we sometimes jump from the physical asset directly to the financial outcome.

We built the fitness center.

We renovated the clubhouse.

We created the coworking lounge.

We added the dog spa.

Now: Did it increase rents? Improve leasing? Help retention?

But there are several steps between those two points.

I see the chain this way:

AMENITY → ACTIVATION → EXPERIENCE → CONNECTION → RETENTION → REVENUE

Every arrow matters.

An amenity is the physical asset.

Activation creates reasons and opportunities for residents to engage with it.

Repeated engagement turns the physical space into an experience.

Experiences can create routines, convenience, enjoyment and connection.

Those things can strengthen perceived value and potentially influence retention.

And when an amenity contributes to acquisition, differentiation, referrals, retention or pricing power, we begin getting closer to its relationship with revenue.

The problem is that multifamily can invest heavily in the first word while assuming the remaining five will happen automatically.

They don't.

A rooftop does not create community merely because it exists.

A coworking lounge does not improve someone's work-from-home lifestyle simply because there are desks inside it.

A fitness center does not become part of a resident's daily routine because it appeared on the amenities page.

Activation is the bridge between what a property owns and what a resident experiences.

Ashley Effinger

Introducing the Amenity Activation Score™

I developed the Amenity Activation Score™ as a framework for evaluating how effectively a multifamily amenity moves from being a physical feature to becoming a resident experience capable of contributing to differentiation, connection, retention and ultimately property performance.

The concept is intentionally different from ranking amenities according to how impressive, expensive or trendy they are.

A $500,000 amenity could receive a poor score.

A modest space activated exceptionally well could receive an outstanding one.

Because the question isn't: How much did we spend?

It's: How much resident and business value are we creating from what we built?

The Amenity Activation Score™ evaluates an amenity across eight dimensions.

1. Resident Relevance

Does the amenity solve a meaningful lifestyle need for the residents who actually live at the community?

Not residents in general.

Not the demographic described in a development presentation five years ago.

The residents living there now — and the prospects the property is trying to attract next.

Preferences change. Resident compositions change. Work habits change. Neighborhoods change.

Relevance has to be continuously earned.

2. Utilization

Are residents actually using the amenity?

And equally important:

How are they using it?

Usage frequency, repeat behavior, time of day, resident segment and even unused portions of the space can tell us more than simply knowing people occasionally enter the room.

An amenity may have considerable untapped capacity without requiring another dollar of capital investment.

3. Activation & Programming

What are we doing to transform availability into participation?

This does not mean every amenity needs an event calendar.

Activation might include fitness programming, coworking sessions, demonstrations, resident challenges, interest groups, partnerships, social gatherings or simply better communication about ways residents can use a space.

Sometimes the activation is operational rather than event-driven.

The objective is the same:

Give residents a reason to engage.

4. Experience Quality

Does the lived experience match the promise?

This is especially important for luxury positioning.

Beautiful photography cannot compensate indefinitely for dirty furniture, broken equipment, unreliable Wi-Fi, inaccessible spaces or a firepit that never works.

The website may create the expectation.

Operations ultimately deliver — or fail to deliver — the proof.

5. Connection

Does the amenity create opportunities for connection?

That could mean resident-to-resident connection, resident-to-community connection or simply a stronger emotional relationship with the place someone calls home.

Not every amenity needs to be social.

But when a space is intended to foster community, we should determine whether community is actually happening there.

6. Marketing Leverage

Are we effectively merchandising the amenity?

There is a major difference between:

"Fitness center available."

and showing prospects how that fitness center fits into the lifestyle they are considering purchasing.

Great amenities should generate stories.

Leasing conversations.

Photography.

Video.

Resident testimonials.

Social content.

Search content.

Events.

Reviews.

Tour moments.

If an amenity creates significant resident value but prospects never discover that value until after move-in, marketing may be leaving competitive advantage on the table.

7. Retention & Revenue Influence

Would residents miss this amenity if they moved?

That might be one of the most revealing questions we can ask.

Because the strongest amenities can eventually create something beyond satisfaction:

switching cost.

Not necessarily financial switching cost.

Experiential switching cost.

The resident has built routines around the coworking space.

Their friends attend events in the lounge.

Their dog loves the private dog park.

They stopped paying for an outside gym membership.

The rooftop has become where they entertain.

Leaving now means giving something up.

That is when an amenity begins doing more than filling square footage.

8. Differentiation

Finally:

Could residents get essentially the same thing at the community across the street?

A gorgeous amenity can still have limited competitive value if everyone in the submarket offers an equivalent version.

Differentiation can come from the physical amenity.

But increasingly, I believe differentiation can also come from how the amenity is activated.

Two properties can have nearly identical resident lounges.

One is an empty room.

The other has become the social heart of the community.

Same category of amenity.

Completely different resident experience.

From Feature to Signature Advantage

The Amenity Activation Score™ is designed as a 100-point diagnostic.

At the bottom of the scale is what I call a Dormant Asset — an amenity that exists but generates limited meaningful value.

Next is a Functional Amenity — useful, perhaps appreciated, but primarily operating as a feature.

As activation increases, the amenity can become an Activated Experience.

At higher performance levels, it can become a Resident Magnet — something residents intentionally build into their routines, conversations and lifestyles.

And at the top:

Signature Advantage

This is where an amenity becomes part of the property's identity.

Prospects remember it.

Residents value it.

Leasing knows how to sell it.

Marketing knows how to tell its story.

Operations protects the experience.

Residents might mention it in reviews, recommendations or renewal conversations.

It has moved from:

"Something our property has."

or

"Something our property has."

Sometimes the Answer Isn't Another Renovation

This framework also changes the capital conversation.

Imagine that resident lounge we started with.

Residents like the design.

The furniture is comfortable.

The space is well maintained.

But utilization is low.

Programming is almost nonexistent.

Residents rarely interact there.

Marketing uses the same three professional photographs repeatedly.

The lounge receives a low Amenity Activation Score™.

What is the solution?

It may not be another renovation.

It might be:

A weekly coworking activation.

A resident-hosted interest group.

A food or wine experience.

A partnership with a neighborhood business.

Better Wi-Fi.

Different furniture placement.

A content campaign showing residents how the space can be used.

More intentional inclusion during leasing tours.

A resident survey asking what would bring them into the space.

In other words:

The asset may not be broken. The activation may be.

Ashley Effinger

That is an important distinction when capital is limited.

Before spending six figures creating something new, there may be considerable value waiting inside what we already own.

The Activation Gap™

The distance between what an amenity promises and what residents actually experience.

Ashley Effinger

Imagine a property marketing a "resort-inspired rooftop experience."

The photography is spectacular.

Then a resident discovers restricted access, worn furniture, unreliable firepits and almost no reason to spend time there.

The marketing promise may be luxury.

The lived experience says otherwise.

The larger that gap becomes, the more dangerous the amenity can become to the brand.

Because luxury isn't established when the advertisement makes the promise.

Luxury is established when the resident finds the proof.

The Amenity Activation Score™ can help identify those gaps before they become normalized. 

The Question I Think Multifamily Should Ask Next

 None of this means multifamily should stop innovating or investing in new amenities.

Resident expectations will continue to evolve. Properties will need to evolve with them.

But I believe the industry's next amenity conversation should include one additional discipline:

optimization before accumulation.

Before asking:

What should we build next?

Ask:

What do our residents value?

What are they actually using?

Where is the experience failing?

Which existing spaces could be activated differently?

Which amenities are creating genuine differentiation?

What resident behavior are we trying to create?

And ultimately:

Before we spend money building another amenity, have we maximized the Amenity Activation Score™ of the ones we already own?

Your best next amenity may not need to be built.

It may need to be activated. 

Final Thoughts

Before multifamily rushes to add the next rooftop feature, wellness concept, coworking upgrade, or social space, there is a more disciplined question worth asking: 

Have we fully activated the amenities we already own?

Because the strongest amenity strategy may not begin with construction.

It may begin with observation.

With resident behavior.

With better programming.

With stronger operations.

With clearer storytelling.

With understanding which spaces have become part of residents' lives and which ones are simply taking up square footage.

That is the larger purpose behind the Amenity Activation Score™.

Not to discourage investment.

To make existing investment work harder.

To help properties identify where an amenity is creating real resident value, where the experience is falling short, and where untapped opportunity may already exist.

And perhaps the most important question is this:

If one of your amenities disappeared tomorrow, would residents genuinely miss it?

If the answer is no, the next move may not be to replace it.

It may be to activate it.

If this article made you think differently about amenity performance, resident experience, or how multifamily can create more value from the spaces it has already built, follow me here on Multifamily Insiders.