Some tenants will spend years living in temporary Airbnb-style short let accommodation after the Coronavirus crisis ends, a lettings platform claims.

The online service Accommodation says many businesses are dispensing with traditional offices and the attraction of living in a city is starting to diminish, thus leading many tenants have a new set of priorities when looking for rental property.

“Millions of tenants are working from home and have started to realise they don’t need to be near offices now or in the near future, students have moved back home to parents and are questioning whether they need to return, and many tenants concerned about their employment status are reluctant to sign new long-term contracts” says the platform.

Therefore it suggests many tenants will be seeking a much more flexible solution allowing them to be more transient “similar to the Airbnb model used for holiday lettings.” 

It says Build To Rent is well placed to managed these transient tenants.

“The market was already in an early stage of change before the pandemic as proptech solutions offered both tenants and landlords an easier way to rent” says Accommodation.

“Some of these solutions included bespoke BTR accommodation that offered deposit free renting, flexible contracts and a choice of shared living extras including bars, pools and gyms. These huge complexes will still have a place in the market as offices slowly reopen later this year and city centres start to become busy hubs once more, but the types of tenants and contracts might be very different to what was originally planned when these sites were built” it suggests.

The platform’s chief executive, Aaron Short, says: “Flexibility is going to be key for private rental accommodation as well as people chose to live as couples, groups or individually and will want to move seamlessly between new apartments and properties that mirror their changing lives. 

“Hopefully when the dust settles as the vaccine starts allowing more freedom and we start returning back to a more normal world, the rental market will learn from the last 10 months and adapt to ensure that it offers the best solutions for tenants and landlords across the UK.”