Using tech to address resi tenants’ changing needs

Residential tenants’ expectations have changed. Apart from basic needs such as somewhere that is private, quiet and secure, proximity to schools and the place of work was a key consideration in the past. Now tenants place value on having more common and shared space.

“Covid really accelerated that because people work from home all the time, or at least a few days a week,” explained Sander Verseput, COO & CFO of proptech company Chainels.

“It’s really a good opportunity for landlords to start facilitating those new needs.”

Rotterdam-based Chainels provides a tenant experience app and platform for multi-tenanted properties with the aim of making working and living in those properties “joyful and sustainable”.

Around 1,750 tenants across three countries recently participated in a survey that the company undertook in order to identify what are their expectations for the place in which they live and the technology they require.

“According to our research only 19% of tenants are already using a tenant experience app or a digital layer. One of the things that we noticed is that a lot of landlords don’t know where to start,” Verseput told Real Asset Insight’s Richard Betts during an interview.

He urged landlords to “get started” because there are tools that can be connected to their IT ecosystems.

“From the landlord’s perspective you can really get a lot of insight from a community so you can also see what service level the different property managers bring to the asset.”

ESG is a currently a big topic for many investors and can be made more tangible by starting a dialogue with tenants. “You can inform them, you can educate them, but you can also show them all kinds of data like energy consumption and maybe some benchmarks on how they are doing compared to their peers,” Verseput said.

“That really helps to get input from the tenants and to make your ESG strategy work and be adopted by occupiers.”

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