Today’s Young BTR Tenants Want More Than A Building; They Want An Experience
The UK’s build-to-rent sector continues to grow. According to the British Property Federation, there are now 58,038 complete BTR homes in the UK, 36,054 under construction and 94,364 in planning. As the economy continues to pick up post-Covid, expectations are that this pipeline will continue to swell.
As more schemes complete, developers may well find themselves forced to compete for tenants in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Success relies just as much on creating a brand as constructing a fit-for-purpose building, said StarRez Chief Executive Travis Knipe, whose company provides a resident and property management platform.
“We are seeing a huge shift to focus on the residential experience beyond the beautiful architectural design and development phase,” he said. “A strong sense of belonging, wellness and community are more important now than ever.”
Here Come The Young
Knipe said that part of the appeal of BTR ties into the UK’s growing subscription economy, where we increasingly expect to access everything we need as a service. This is particularly the case for young professionals, a key target market for BTR. They have become used to the offering of the purpose-built student accommodation sector, or PBSA, which has grown significantly in recent years. Today this sector delivers high specification apartment blocks, which has elevated the expectations of young people leaving university.
“As the PBSA sector has been growing, students have had access to a wonderful lifestyle and choice of amenities,” Knipe said. “It has become natural after they complete their degrees to look for a similar style of accommodation. There is also a generational shift in habits that value experiences and flexibility more than investments.”
StarRez works with many landlords in the student accommodation sector, giving it a clear insight into how a landlord can provide the experience that young people are looking for. As property companies and investors seek to diversify their portfolios, many are looking to BTR.
“We are seeing property developers that have great expertise in the PBSA sector take this experience to BTR,” Knipe said. “They can bring their operational models, technology platforms, brands and staff to transition seamlessly, so they have an advantage over developers that are looking at the sector for the first time. Those developers are probably assessing whether BTR is within their area of expertise or whether they should bring in an operator. Developing a residential community and operating one are very distinct domains of expertise."
How To Get The Experience Right
Developers are increasingly aware of the need to create a brand for a building that attracts tenants, but the next question is how to do it. Knipe said that getting the experience right for a new BTR property starts right at the beginning of the tenant journey.
“It starts with how tenants find out about the building in the first place, then how they make a booking and sign a lease,” he said. “The whole experience needs to be seamless. The market is getting extremely competitive and landlords are optimising SEO and so on to reach their audience. You need a compelling brand and a seamless digital experience to create the right first impression.”
Once a tenant has chosen their home, the seamless digital experience needs to continue. StarRez’s platform, for example, facilitates contactless moving-in procedures, booking systems using an app and touchless ways to receive packages. While this all provides convenience for tenants, it also provides a wealth of information for the landlord.
“Lots of buildings offer yoga classes or cinema nights, but the developers with an advantage are those that know how residents are using these amenities,” Knipe said. “We can allow operators to access the registration for a yoga class, for example, and see who attended. They can build up an overview of how each resident engages with the community and have a sense of people who might need to be checked up on or who might be considering leaving. For example, it will show who has flagged 10 maintenance tickets in a month.”
When a developer gets the seamless experience right, reputation will follow. This is all the more important among young people, a generation that shares its experiences on social media. A developer might want to scale its BTR portfolio across cities; if the brand is right, the audience will follow.
This article was produced in collaboration between StarRez and Studio B. Bisnow news staff was not involved in the production of this content.
Studio B is Bisnow’s in-house content and design studio. To learn more about how Studio B can help your team, reach out to studio@bisnow.com.
