Good resident satisfaction survey questions are short, specific, ask about one thing at a time, and lead to a decision the property team can actually make. For apartment communities, that usually means a handful of rating questions on core areas (maintenance, communication, amenities, community and value), a few questions about events and programming, and one or two open-ended questions, all sent at a predictable time and followed by a visible response to what residents said.
Below are sample questions you can adapt, plus guidance on survey timing, response rates and the mistakes that make results hard to use.
Why resident surveys often disappoint
Surveys tend to fall into one of two traps: asking too much (“rate 40 things from 1 to 10”) or too little (“How are we doing?”). Both produce data that is hard to act on. Before writing questions, decide what you will do with the answers. If a question cannot change a budget line, a schedule, a vendor or a process, consider cutting it.
It also helps to separate three kinds of surveys:
- Transactional surveys sent after a specific moment, such as move-in, a work order or an event.
- Annual or semi-annual satisfaction surveys that track the whole resident experience over time.
- Programming or interest surveys that ask what residents want next.
This post focuses on the second and third types. Our new resident welcome program covers early move-in check-ins.
Rules for writing better survey questions
Pew Research Center’s guidance on questionnaire design is a useful reference for any property team (Pew Research Center, Writing Survey Questions). A few principles translate directly:
- Ask one question at a time. “How satisfied are you with maintenance speed and quality?” is two questions. Split it.
- Watch your wording. Pew notes that even small wording differences can substantially affect answers. Avoid loaded phrases such as “our award-winning amenities.”
- Mind the order. Earlier questions can shape answers to later ones. Ask the overall satisfaction question before detailed ones if you want a clean read on overall sentiment.
- Offer complete, balanced options. Rating scales should run from clearly negative to clearly positive, and multiple-choice lists should include “Other” or “Not applicable.”
- Use open-ended questions sparingly but deliberately. They surface issues you did not think to ask about.
Sample resident satisfaction survey questions
Use a consistent scale, for example 1 (very dissatisfied) to 5 (very satisfied), with a “Not applicable” option.
Overall experience
- Overall, how satisfied are you with living at this community?
- How likely are you to recommend this community to a friend or coworker? (0 to 10)
- If your lease ended today, how likely would you be to renew? (Very unlikely to very likely)
Maintenance and the home
- How satisfied are you with how quickly maintenance requests are completed?
- How satisfied are you with the quality of completed maintenance work?
- How satisfied are you with the cleanliness of common areas?
Communication and the office team
- How satisfied are you with how well the office keeps you informed about things that affect you (outages, projects, policy changes)?
- When you contact the office, how satisfied are you with the response?
Amenities and safety
- How satisfied are you with the amenities available to you?
- Which amenities do you use at least once a month? (Select all that apply)
- How safe do you feel in common areas at night?
Community and resident events
- How satisfied are you with the resident events and programs offered here?
- In the past six months, how many resident events have you attended? (None, 1, 2 to 3, 4 or more)
- If you have not attended, what is the main reason? (Times do not work, not interested in the topics, did not know about them, other)
- Which types of events would you be most likely to attend? (Social mixers, family events, wellness and fitness, educational workshops, pet events, food and markets, holiday events, other)
- What days and times work best for you?
- How connected do you feel to your neighbors? (Not at all to very connected)
Open-ended
- What is one thing we could change that would most improve your experience here?
- Is there anything else you would like us to know?
For senior or affordable communities, consider adding questions about specific services, such as transportation, health and wellness programming, or educational workshops, and offer paper copies or in-person help for residents who prefer it. See our guides to senior apartment activities and financial literacy workshops for program ideas you can test.
How to get more responses
Grace Hill puts the average survey response rate at 10% to 30%, depending on audience engagement, and recommends promoting surveys through several channels, keeping them short and mobile-friendly, offering small incentives, sending reminders to non-respondents, and sharing results afterward (Grace Hill, 2025).
Practical ways to apply that on site:
- Keep it under about 15 questions for an annual survey and three or fewer for event follow-ups.
- Use several channels: resident portal, email, text where residents have opted in, a QR code at the mail room and at events.
- Set a fixed window, such as two weeks, with one or two reminders.
- Offer a simple incentive, such as a gift card drawing, if your company policy allows it.
- Run it at the same time each year so results are comparable.
What to do with the results
Grace Hill recommends sharing results with residents to build trust, and residents who see nothing happen after a survey have little reason to answer the next one. Within a few weeks of closing the survey:
- Summarize the top themes for the team, separating quick fixes from capital or policy items.
- Pick two or three visible actions, such as adjusting event times, adding a requested event type, or changing how the office communicates outages.
- Tell residents what you heard and what is changing, through a newsletter, portal post or a short “you asked, we listened” flyer.
- Track the same core questions next time to see whether the changes registered.
Survey results are also useful when deciding whether your current programming is working; our post on whether resident events are worth it walks through that decision.
Common mistakes
- Asking about things the team cannot or will not change.
- Combining two topics in one question.
- Changing the scale or wording every year, which breaks comparisons.
- Surveying right after a major outage or rent increase without accounting for that context.
- Collecting names when anonymity would get more honest answers (or promising anonymity and then not protecting it).
- Not sharing any results with residents.
Frequently asked questions
How often should apartment communities survey residents?
One workable rhythm is a single annual satisfaction survey plus short transactional surveys after move-in, work orders and events. Sending long surveys more often than that risks survey fatigue.
Should resident surveys be anonymous?
Anonymous surveys can encourage more candid feedback. If you need to follow up on a specific issue, add an optional field where residents can leave contact details.
How many questions should a resident survey have?
Shorter is better. Grace Hill recommends keeping surveys short and simple; for most annual surveys, 10 to 15 well-chosen questions is a practical target.
What is a good response rate?
Grace Hill cites an average of 10% to 30%. Track your own rate over time and focus on improving it rather than chasing a fixed benchmark.
Turn feedback into programming residents attend
If your survey shows that residents want more, or different, events but your on-site team does not have the bandwidth, Roseway Resident Services can help. We plan and run resident events and wellness programs for communities in Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, Houston and San Antonio, with follow-up reporting so you can see what is working. Start with our resident experience check or contact us to talk through your survey results.