New Study Reveals What Millennial Renters Want

Top 5 things Millennials are looking for in an apartment.

By Keith Loria, Contributing Editor

Madison, Wis.—ABODO has published the findings of a new study examining what Millennial renters desire in apartments.

“To conduct our study, we surveyed college students from around the country to gauge their preference for amenities and analyzed pricing and amenities data for more than 1,000,000 rentals located within five miles of 494 U.S. colleges,” Alec Slocum, ABODO’s CEO, told MHN. “Millennials want mobile-friendly search and renting capabilities, much like the platform we offer at ABODO.”

Some of the study’s key findings included: 96 percent of Millennials rated finding a property that fits their budget as most important; 75 percent rated the safety of the building and neighborhood as the most important; and Millennials’ top three amenities included available parking (78 percent), in-unit laundry (67 percent) and controlled building access (60 percent).

“The survey showed that 83 percent of Millennials even sleep with their smart phones. High-tech amenities are incredibly important as well, including WiFi access, specifically, premium bandwidth,” Slocum said. “Some students even stated they’d be willing to pay more to get premium bandwidth at their apartment complexes.”

Unsurprisingly, Millennial renters also were shown to want state-of-the-art fitness centers, high-tech study rooms and easy video streaming capabilities.

“As the number of technological advances increase, Millennials are sure to want the latest and greatest innovative technologies, as compared to simpler amenities in the past,” Slocum said.

The study shows that Millennials are shaping today’s current rental market because they’re one of the largest groups driving the economy.

“Millennials’ earning and spending power has a distinct impact on the rental market. Millennials have continued to prefer renting as opposed to buying, so this will continue to drive rental prices up because of the size of this generation,” Slocum said. “Also, Millennials are shaping how agents and brokers communicate with clients. They want information fast and they want it via text or email, or even social media. They also want to view peer reviews of properties and use mobile platforms to view images and video, so communication methods are shifting in the rental market.”

Student housing developers and operators are clearly upping the stakes when it comes to property amenities and services that appeal to today’s students, and they are getting the word out on multiple social media channels.

“Millennials want to be made aware of apartment openings, deals and more via social media. They want to communicate on smart phones and information needs to be purveyed quickly,” Slocum said. “Companies should implement social media strategies and plan to share information on their social channels frequently. Companies should also work to create online photo libraries and blog posts to spread the word about their properties, all the while ensuring that their posts and images are optimized for Google searches.”