In my opinion, the harder it is to get, the better because fewer competitors will take the action required. 

in the college town I deal in, the college apartment competitors will give you clue to what the leasing practices are.

I want to differentiate myself from my competitors but don't know how yet.

I am creating this discussion to see if anyone would be interested in getting a FREE competitor research report for their competition online.I pay for 2 powerful SEO tools (Semrush.com and Ahrefs.com).

So, while I understand you wanting to stand out, this can be done to some degree, and if you feel that you need a higher degree of difference between you and your competitors, I would encourage you to reconsider why that's so important.

Photos make or break your listing and if you are not keeping up with your competitors, great photos and good reviews are going to be your bread and butter to increased occupancy. 

But I have great rates with them and the closest competitor is about $500 more annually so I weighed my options of switching companies vs making them happy and they won out.  

The bad news is that now you have a competitor across the street...

@John Underwood It's the World Equestrian Center drawing a lot of high dollar competitors to Ocala, in addition to the long standing HITS circuit (Hunters in the Sun). 

I was just looking at the reviews for one of my competitors.