Resident satisfaction amongst Build To Rent tenants is falling for the first time since reviews were first collected five years ago.
A survey by reviews website HomeViews and property portal Rightmove shows that for three years running residents in BTR schemes rated their homes higher – on average – than both owners and private tenants in new builds.
However, the dip in ratings is put down to Build To Rent diversifying into the more mainstream areas of Single Family Housing (typically in houses in suburbs) rather than high-price apartments (typically flats located in city centre areas).
Rory Cramer, chief executive of HomeViews, comments: “2022 was a challenging year for both tenants and the rental housing industry. Even historically strong performers like the Build to Rent sector felt the impact of factors like rising costs, rent increases and staffing shortages, and resident ratings dipped accordingly. However, BTR apartments remain the country’s most popular new homes, and merit more support from planning authorities to counter the delivery slowdown we saw towards the end of 2022 as tough economic conditions hit the wider construction industry.”
He says the drop in BTR resident ratings is partly driven by the sector’s rapid expansion, with £4.3 billion invested in 2022 and many operators facing the challenge of operating at greater scale.
Single Family Housing communities do not achieve the same ratings as BTR apartment schemes (which HomeViews admits offer a wider range of facilities, communal spaces and community events) and so have also contributed to lower overall scores for BTR.
These findings are drawn from the HomeViews 2023 Build to Rent Report, in partnership with Rightmove. This year’s report analysed nearly 11,000 verified resident reviews collected over four years and covering 89 per cent of completed rental-only new build developments in the UK.
The report also assessed the performance of office-to-resi rental developments when compared with purpose-built equivalents and found that these perform at a similarly high level. Converted developments even scored higher for their design.
The Rightmove data in the survey revealed that tenant demand in BTR has more than quadrupled since February 2019 due to more availability and awareness of the sector.
“The unique offering of BTR is driving tenants to enquire from further away than the [wider] private rental sector, with nearly one in five leads into BTR operators coming from a tenant living more than 50km away from the development, compared with 14 per cent in the PRS” it says.
Rightmove’s analysis also found that listings which highlighted service-based features, such as being in an area with good transport links, being well connected and being professionally managed, generate the most interest from prospective tenants, while listings which highlight physical features such as a pool, cinema or café generate less interest per listing.
Rightmove spokesman Tim Bannister says: “We’re in a unique position at Rightmove to be able to see how millions of tenants are searching for their next home, and what is clear is that while BTR is still a small proportion of the overall rental market, there has been significant growth in the number of tenants considering a BTR home in line with its increasing availability.
“The gap between supply and demand in private rented sector has significantly widened during the pandemic making it a real challenge for many renters to secure a home, while we know from our own search data what tenants are looking for, for example a home that allows pets or comes with bills included.
“As BTR availability grows, there is an opportunity to increase its appeal to the mass market of renters looking for an available home to rent with the amenities that are most important to them.”
