What we need from each property
The property data we need captured
Here's everything we need for each property so we can build a top-of-class listing on Apartments.com, Zillow, and the Foothold site. Think of this as the shot list and data sheet. Most of it gets captured once, at takeover or first turn, then reused everywhere.
The one rule that saves money: we capture per floor-plan type, not per unit. A 30-unit building with three floor plans needs three sets of unit photos, three 3D scans, and three floor-plan drawings, not thirty. Building, exterior, and amenity assets are captured once for the whole property.
The second rule, new as of 2026-08-05: don't hand-collect what the PMS already hands over. Two rounds of live probes settled exactly what Entrata does and does not return, so every line below is now tagged.
Entrata means the API gives it to us the day that property is on the key, so
collect it once by hand if you must, but never build a standing process around it and never re-key it after the feed is on. Capture means Entrata will never give it, on any property, so those are the ones worth chasing now.
Split means part comes from the API and part doesn't.
Today that's theory for our buildings. The key covers exactly one property, Owyhee Park, which is Liberty's own building, not ours. Aspen closes 8/31 and isn't in Liberty's Entrata yet, Summerset either, and North River's software is still being decided. So for Aspen, Summerset and North River, everything below is hand-capture right now. The tags tell you which asks disappear later and which ones never will.
Photos 25–30 finished
"Can we get a pro photographer through every space, plus a staged model of each floor plan?"
- Hero shot: one bright, wide, horizontal image, the best exterior or the best amenity. This is the thumbnail that wins or loses the click.
- Exterior set: the building from a few angles, entrance and signage, and the location hook (Greenbelt, river, downtown view) if there is one.
- Amenity set: every amenity we list, pool, clubhouse, dog park, laundry, gym, parking, mailroom.
- Interior set, per floor-plan type: a staged model unit, kitchen, living, each bedroom, each bath, in-unit washer/dryer, the view.
Specs: minimum 2,048px on the long side, horizontal/landscape, JPG or PNG, full color. No filters, no watermarks, no text or logos on the image, no phone numbers or URLs in the photo. Those get the listing auto-rejected.
Capture Entrata can't help here on any property. The property photo library (getPropertyMedia) is not on our key, so even a fully connected building gives us no photos. Ours to shoot, ours to own. The one exception is floorplan images, below.
Why: photos are the single biggest driver of click-through. Staged model shots make a Class C unit read as cared-for. Lead with the strongest three.
Video 1 walkthrough
"Grab a walkthrough video in the same shoot, plus a few vertical clips."
- One HD property walkthrough: exterior into amenities into a model unit per floor-plan type.
- A handful of vertical cut-downs from the same footage for social and Reels reuse.
Why: video lifts engagement and time-on-listing, which is exactly what the Apartments.com algorithm rewards.
Matterport 3D tour 1 per floor plan + commons
"A 3D scan of one model per floor plan, plus the common areas."
- One Matterport scan per floor-plan type (the staged model), plus every common and amenity space.
- Not every unit. (Only worth scanning every unit if we go to Apartments.com's top tier, which unlocks unlimited unit scans, generally only for a big lease-up.)
- Optional: a drone 3D exterior, a newer Matterport feature.
Note: a phone-shot Matterport is acceptable, but a pro scan reads far better on the model units. We want to own the files so they also run on the Foothold site and in investor updates.
Why: 80% of renters want a 3D tour and most local competitors don't have one. Listings with 3D get materially more leads.
2D floor-plan drawings 1 per floor plan
"Do we have a clean line-drawing floor plan for each layout, and are the ones already in Entrata any good?"
- One dimensioned line-drawing floor plan per floor-plan type, with square footage and bed/bath labeled.
- If the PM or owner has existing leasing floor plans, those work. If not, they're cheap to have drawn.
Entrata Check the API first before commissioning anything. getFloorPlans returns a floorplan image per plan, CDN-hosted and usable directly on the site (Owyhee Park has all four). Look at them before paying for drawings, and only draw the ones that are missing or unusable. Two cautions: pin the image URLs and re-check them, since a PM edit inside Entrata can rotate them, and square footage comes from getFloorPlans and nowhere else, the availability feed returns broken numbers for it.
Why: renters use the 2D plan to understand the layout, and most Boise competitors skip it. It's a cheap, easy edge.
Drone / aerial few stills
"Can the photographer get a few aerials showing where this sits?"
- Aerial stills showing the property in context: the commute anchor (Micron, St. Luke's, downtown) and the location hook (Greenbelt, river).
- Optional drone 3D exterior tied into the Matterport.
Why: location is half the renter's decision. An aerial proves the proximity claim instead of just asserting it. Best value where the location is the hook (North River on the Greenbelt).
Structured data the data sheet
"We need the full data sheet on each property and floor plan, so the listings filter correctly and nothing's missing."
This is the part that decides whether we even show up in a renter's filtered search. Miss one amenity and we're invisible to everyone filtering for it. We need all of the below, and the tags say who supplies it.
Per floor-plan type
Floor plan name
Entrata plan names come back on getFloorPlans (Owyhee: 1x1, 2x2, 2x2 End, 2x2 Mid). Rename for marketing if we want, but start from theirs.
Beds / baths
Entrata carried by the plan and unit-type names. Confirm the exact bath count with the PM where the name is ambiguous.
Square footage
Entrata authoritative from getFloorPlans. Never take it from the availability feed, those numbers are broken.
Market rent / price
Entrata live, per plan and per unit type. Rent comes back for all 24 lease terms and only the 12-month term is web-visible, so that's the one we publish.
Availability date
Entrata live, with make-ready dates. Trust the API's availability, don't derive it from lease status, the two don't reconcile.
Floorplan image
Entrata CDN-hosted JPG per plan, usable as-is. Pin the URL.
Deposit
Capture amount + any deposit alternatives. Not in the feed. (Pet deposit and pet rent are, see property level.)
Lease terms
Entrata the full term list is on getProperties (Owyhee offers 1 through 24 months). Which ones we actually market is our call.
In-unit features
Capture W/D, A/C, dishwasher, balcony/patio, flooring, etc. The amenity method is permissioned and returns zero rows, so there is nothing to sync, on any property.
Per unit
Unit number, building, floor
Entrata every unit, occupied and vacant, with building name, floor, unit type and plan (Owyhee: all 52).
Specific availability
Entrata per-unit available and make-ready dates, live.
Unit-level media
Capture if we ever go beyond one model per plan. No photo library comes through the API.
Property level
Address + map pin
Entrata full street address rides on every unit record. Set the map pin by eye anyway, a mailing address isn't a leasing-office pin.
Community amenities
Capture full list: pool, dog park, laundry, gym, parking, clubhouse, etc. The amenity feed returns zero rows, so this is our own content with a named owner and a re-check date.
Pet policy
Split types allowed, pet deposit and pet rent come from the API (Owyhee: cats and dogs, $300 deposit, $50/mo). Weight and breed limits do not, ask for those. Never answer "is this building pet friendly" from resident pet records.
Parking
Capture assigned / covered / street, and any cost.
Utilities
Capture what's included vs. tenant-paid, and how billed.
Concessions / specials
Capture the specials feed is permissioned and returns zero rows, so concessions are an out-of-band conversation with the PM every time one runs. If we don't ask, the agent quotes list price and is wrong.
Application
Capture application fee, screening criteria, income requirement. The whole applications group is off the key. Also get the standing apply link (Entrata's ProspectPortal URL) for the property, which is the one thing currently waiting on Liberty. Don't guess the URL pattern.
Office hours
Entrata on getProperties (Owyhee reads M-F 9 to 5, no weekend). ⚠️ The tour calendar reports 08:00 to 16:00 for the same building, an hour earlier at each end. Two API sources disagree, so confirm with the PM before publishing hours anywhere.
Leasing + maintenance contacts
Capture leasing phone and email, the after-hours maintenance line, and who a real escalation reaches. Treat the recipient as per-property config, not a constant.
Description copy
Capture we write this; PM confirms the facts and the commute anchors.
Resident data for the engines, not the listing
"What do we actually have to ask residents for, now that we can read the lease file?"
The recognition, pet-gift and turn engines need resident-level data. Most of it turns out to be in the lease and lead feeds already, which means less to ask a resident for and fewer forms to build. The tags here matter more than anywhere else on the page, because the wrong assumption sends us collecting data we already have or shipping a feature on data we don't.
Resident pets
Entrata on the lease read, with the pet's name, type, breed, color, age and weight (Owyhee: 34 animals across 30 of 52 leases). No pet form to build. 🚫 Assistance and service animals are excluded at ingest, out of the gift program and out of every pet-themed touch. That's fair housing, not tact.
Resident birthdays
Split the lead feed carries a birth date for 65% of current residents, measured, and the leases carry none at all. The other ~35% has no API path and never will, so the Welcome Profile is a required piece of the program, not an optional fallback. 🔒 Store month and day only, never the year.
Household roster
Entrata roommates and guarantors come back as real person records (Owyhee: 100 people against 52 leases), which is also where the customer IDs come from. Read it for household grain, not to build a contact list: it carries emergency contacts and spouses who never signed anything.
Marketing consent
Entrata opt-in per person per channel, including postal mail, which most of the recognition engine runs on. Check it before every touch. No preference on file means don't send.
Move-in dates, charges, lease dates
Entrata the full current rent roll with scheduled charges and lease start/end. Tenure, anniversaries and renewal exposure all compute from it. Don't ask a PM to type up a rent roll.
Social Security number
Never we don't ask for one, don't store one, don't log one. NPI has no use for it and doesn't want the liability. It gets stripped on read even where a lease export declares the field.
Maintenance setup nothing to collect
Worth stating plainly so nobody builds an intake form for it: the maintenance vocabulary a connected property uses (locations, priorities, statuses, categories, problems) and the on-site staff roster come straight off the API for a property on the key, along with the real work-order history. Entrata Don't ask a PM to type up a priority list or a tech roster. What's still worth asking, and it's a conversation not a data sheet: how they want an emergency routed after hours, and who a real escalation reaches when the office is closed.
Why it matters here: Owyhee's office is open M-F 9 to 5, so 76% of the week has nobody on site. That gap is the whole reason the service KPI and the escalation path exist, and it isn't something a photographer or a data sheet fixes.
Live data, and where the details live: price and availability sync automatically from the PM software (
Entrata, Liberty's system) once a property is on the API key.
Only Owyhee Park is on it today, and that's Liberty's building, not one of ours, so Aspen, Summerset and North River are hand-capture until property scope is extended. Everything tagged
Capture stays a human job no matter what.
(Connection points are on the Entrata integration page; the call-by-call detail is in reference/entrata-touchpoints.md.)
Send what you've already got and we'll fill the gaps, but check the tags first, no point re-typing what the PMS already hands us. The goal is one clean asset set per property that powers Apartments.com, Zillow, and the Foothold site at once. Questions? owner@footholdboise.com goes straight to Brent.