Understanding the Renter of 2019

By Christopher Levarek

“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.”

- Peter Drucker

Who is the Renter or Tenant of 2019? As a landlord or investor, this is a key question to investing. Understanding the present and future customer for a rental property will allow smart investing into property that meet or satisfy those needs. Today we look at some key facts and figures on the “Renter of 2019” as per a Zillow market survey of over 10,000 market participants :

The Typical Renter

Here we see Millenials make up almost 50% of the renter pool, or the age range of 25-39. The median household income for the average renter is $37,500 a year and 60% of the surveyed make less than $60k. Now the figures are generalized across the United States, however if one were to target affordable rental properties for those in the age range of the Millenials with $37,500 household income, these rentals would hypothetically be in great demand according to these figures.

The Typical Rental

Here we see that the typical rental is within or near city limits(86% Urban/Suburban) and usually found in Apartment complexes which account for 79% of all the rentals surveyed. Multifamily or apartment properties in this case appear to be a good investment in urban/suburban areas.

What Renters Want in a Rental

With no surprise, 85% of renters consider rental rates to be one of the most important considerations for selecting a rental followed up the 69% selecting air conditioning as a key requirement. An interesting figure is that parking space is much more valued in the West then the overall U.S., meaning supplying quality parking for tenants in the West could help keep vacancy down and represent a better rental.

Reasons for Renting

Here we see that 67% of renters feel that renting suits their lifestyle and they want to be able to move easily as life changes. This seems to speak to the present visible millennial movement or preference of lifestyle and freedom being priority rather than traditional viewpoints of a mortgage and long term home ownership.

In Final

These data figures are quite interesting and we recommend viewing the full report here as not all has been shared. We do want to again stress that these are summarized data figures from a surveyed group of people. These data points do not accurately represent sub-markets, niche rental needs/services, etc. An investor or landlord should always perform due diligence on a selected market to understand data for that specific market. As always, Invest Smart!