When you are a landlord or homeowner looking to rent out some space, keeping an eye on your target demographic is essential. After all, you want to attract the people who have the purchasing power to purchase or rent your real estate property.
The main thing to remember here is that the generation with the most purchasing power changes every now and then. These young folks will be different from the previous generations. Today, it is time to prepare for attracting the Gen Z renters who are making major impacts on the property market.
It might be a bit challenging to understand what a whole new generation wants from their living space. While we can’t generalize too much, it will help to have a few starting points on how to attract Gen Z towards your property.
How to Go About Attracting
Gen Z Renters
Millennials might be the generation that is renting a lot of properties now, but the next generation of renters isn’t too far away. Let’s have a look at how these young renters (born between 1995 and 2010) might be tempted to go for an apartment, multi family home, and other options in 2023:
What Does Gen Z Want?
When looking for real estate to rent, gen zers aren’t usually attracted by traditional marketing.
Keep in mind that this generation mostly grew up with modern technology, high speed Internet, and quick results for whatever they want. As a result, they have a mobile mindset and a relatively short attention span.
The best you can do for attracting Generation Z is to make your leasing process efficient, check out the new kinds of communication channels, and give them enhanced amenities wherever possible. Gen z is all set to get into the market for renting real estate. So, we have to know their expectations and meet them to the best of our abilities.
Get A Mobile-First Marketing Strategy
Since Gen Z has known technology all their lives, they would probably look to the internet first when deciding where to live and what to rent.
If you are planning to put up your house or apartment for rent, make sure to do it on an online platform that’s accessible through mobile devices.
This mobile-first strategy should also work when it comes to leasing or communicating between parties. For all cases, there should be a way for the young renters to contact you using their mobile devices. Yes, laptops and PCs are still a thing but gen z’s preference would mostly be using their smartphone for almost every single task.
Stay Social
Social media constitutes a lot of what gen z renters look towards for their interests and decisions.
This is why your rental marketing should be focusing on the most popular platforms for social media. These include TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr, and so on.
One thing to always keep in mind here; these young renters are good at multitasking but they are also prone to scroll on if something doesn't catch their interest. This is why every social media ad for your real estate should be specific, grab their attention, and convey the main message very quickly. If you ignore these aspects, you are likely to lose engagement.
To get the best results, your marketing efforts should be on content that visually appeals to most viewers. You might want to play around with vibrant colors, vivid graphics, playful fonts, gifs, videos, etc.
Foster A Sense Of Community
Gen Zers are usually looking out to get an experience rather than materialistic objects, though we can’t speak for every single individual.
When they rent, a sense of community will be a great boon. Many millennials might also want the same thing. So, you might be able to grab their attention before the young renters come in.
For this factor, you would want to brand your apartment or house through amenity programming. Such events will build up a community connection and might also allow you to conduct a little survey every now and then.
Another motivation for gen zers is personalization. When you know a little more about the potential young renters, it will be easier to tailor your offering according to their wants or needs. You can also offer customized concessions. But it’s a little old-fashioned to simply give a straight discount or a month free from rent.
Since gen z'ers are also used to amenities with their student housing, you might want to see about offering the same within your real estate area. For instance, ask the fitness studios in the area if they have yoga classes, search out dog walking services for potential tenants with pets, and so on. When they search ‘renovated 1 bedroom apartments near me,’ your place might come up and tempt them to make a final decision.
Make Use Of Videos And Photos
Since Generation Z is so attached to their phone, they would probably be searching around a lot before putting any money down.
If you want your place to seem appealing when viewed online, it is best to put up a lot of photos and even videos of the apartment or house.
If you put in a link for viewing the place in 3D, that would be the best option for many gen z-ers. Basically, this is a generation that wants to get to know the whole unit, amenities, and the property in general even before setting foot on it in real life. Even if the search is just ‘mobile homes for sale,’ gen zers would want a properly detailed album to pique their interest.
Avoid Phone Conversations
If you want to successfully obtain some decent rental applications, don’t try to communicate with gen Z though the phone.
As with many millennials, Gen Z also has a phobia of talking on the phone. Instead, try texting, online chats, and several other means of communications.
One useful survey shows us just how attached gen Z youth are to their smartphones. Ironically, the charm of talking to another person on the phone is long gone now.
Highlight Their Wants
Overall, Generation Z are believed to be less active than millennials and also less likely to be attracted to traditional amenities.
For instance, you might think that a fitness center in the apartment building or a swimming pool might be very attractive amenities for your average renter. However, Gen zers are usually looking for rental properties where there are common spaces to mix with other people.
From this information, it seems like focusing on making and advertising lounge spaces, both indoor and outdoor, might be the way to go. The same goes for any shared amenities, like co-working space, strong Wi-Fi, and walkable restaurants.
Let Your Online Reviews Be Visible
Websites for online reviews, like Yelp, are on their way out.
For now, those who are considering a rental will be taking their queries and reviews to their social media platforms. They might also post specifically on certain groups or their own online stories to complain about or praise any establishment.
Gen Z will be doing just this, though traditional review sites are still read and used by many. Their most valuable communication here is the word-of-mouth, preferably from someone they know and trust. You see, Gen Zers are wary of paid, misleading, and false reviews.
With all this in mind, it is best to focus on customer engagement for social media platforms, networking, and push reviews. This will hopefully spread the work of your apartment’s features and amenities in an organic matter.
The Takeaway
Gen Z is all set to fully enter the real estate market in a few years or even months. Their impact on realty is real.
It is high time that homeowners and landlords sat together and took notice. Now is the time to make some changes in your strategy and mindset. So get started as soon as possible raking in the real estate rentals from Generation Z!
