James Davis Blog
06 February 2014
Bandwidth. Is Superfast Broadband Essential for Rental Properties in 2014?
For tenants who work from home, rely on the internet for live streaming television, or who have family far away who we speak to on Skype, the quality of our internet is now of the utmost importance. Being connected in the home isn’t enough anymore. As an increasing number of devices demand ever more bandwidth, tenants are increasingly demanding properties have the superfast connectivity.
When we asked our tenants* almost half (46%) said superfast broadband as either ‘essential’ or ‘very important’ to them. When you consider the brief period of time fibre broadband has been available, the appetite for new hardware and the millions being spent on marketing the services by BT, Sky et al, it’s clear to see that a fast connection is becoming as critical as central heating when it comes to marketing your property.
You only need to look at the headline status a fibre connection is given in property advertising for corporate developments to see its value to future residents.
If you’re looking at a new investment, avoiding a black spot is key. As well as the ISP’s own maps, independent sites like Broadband Genie can help you check out a specific location. If you’re still concerned, you can ask the seller to see a real time test of the broadband speed in the property (ideally at a peak time when the connection will be at its slowest).
However, as 4G rolls out across the remaining networks this autumn, is the balance about to swing back to mobile connectivity? In the same survey a quarter of tenants already felt 4G was ‘essential‘ or ‘very important’. This is something we’ll be keeping a close eye on for our landlords as our customers’ lives become ever more reliant on bandwidth.
* we asked 23,000 tenants (who enquired about a Upad property in Nov 2013) how important 3G, 4G, broadband and fibre broadband was to them. We had 750 responses.
James Davis is CEO at Upad
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