Category: Insight

Tenants who are engaged with their local community are often happier than those who are not, so connecting tenants to one another and allowing them to form meaningful relationships with their local community has now become a necessity rather than just a luxury. 

It’s also far more cost-effective to retain happy tenants. Average turnover costs for an apartment within the industry is around £1,200, however this number can often be significantly higher, depending on a wide variety of factors specific to the property.  

Although turnover to some degree is inevitable, in many instances, developments lose tenants because the living experience falls short of their expectations. Property managers should be striving to encourage tenants to consider the entire building as their home instead of limiting the idea to just their apartment. 

While it’s relatively easy to provide trendy amenities, great designs, and flashy décor, what really attracts tenants to a building, and keeps them staying year after year, is creating a sense of community and belonging that supports their wellbeing.  

Why Engage With the Community?

When a new tenant moves into a building, they may be unfamiliar with the surrounding area. Connecting them with others in the building, local shops and services, or details that can bring convenience to their lives is a great way of ensuring tenants feel engaged from the offset. Many of our clients team up with the local businesses to offer exclusive discounts to their tenants on anything from cleaning services, dog walkers to local restaurants.

Holding regular social events is also an important way in allowing friendships between tenants to blossom – whether that’s online or in person. Research by Apartment Life found that the more friends a tenant has within their building, the more likely they are to renew their tenancy. Without any friends living in their community, tenants only have a 29% chance of renewing. That number jumps to 38% if they have 1-3 friends, and if they have 7 or more friends, there’s a 47% likelihood that they’ll renew. Facilitating safe and easy communication among members of the community allows people to get to know each other more easily.  

The Power of Community

Investing in developing a community not only enhances the tenant experience – it can also lead to better outcomes. Tenants are more likely to behave in a way that benefits the collective good if they feel an attachment to the people, place and community in which they live. 

Although the link between a sense of community and pro-environment behaviours is an under-researched area, there is evidence that supports these observations. Fostering a sense of community and attachment to a place and to others increases the effectiveness of behaviour change campaigns in relation to both energy saving and recycling, for example.  

This is because when individuals feel that they belong to a community or want to fit in to that community, and their identity is partly attached to it, they are more likely to act in a way that benefits the collective good. 

The Role Technology Can Play in Engaging Tenants

Tenant engagement portals such as Spike Living can help to foster a sense of community and attachment, as well as empower tenants by providing relevant, relatable information. Research highlights that the presentation of data in terms of direct energy units such as kWh or in terms of CO2 emissions is difficult for users to understand. 

However, a tenant engagement portal that can present usage information in relation to others, demonstrate impact and employ gamification techniques to motivate tenants is more effective at creating engagement and driving change. Whilst a tenant might look at their smart meter and not grasp what a kilowatt-hour is, showing that they are using more energy than their neighbours will make them instantly better informed. Examples include the amount of energy used compared with others living in a similar sized apartment in the building, the amount of carbon used in a 10-minute shower, or how much energy is saved by turning the heating down by one click.  

Furthermore, having the ability to send out personalised, weather-appropriate tips to help tenants reduce consumption, as well as keeping the community engaged with useful information, can make cutting their carbon footprint seem like a positive achievement rather than an enforced misery. This mixture of education and competition creates a feedback loop of positive reinforcement that will keep the issue front of mind. 

At the end of last year, Spike Global, ASK4 and Utopi released Changing Behaviours, a joint research report highlighting how working to change the behaviour of tenants can reap significant rewards. For example, strategies that tap into the natural human instinct to conform to social norms – such as providing feedback on consumption and comparison with others – can result in behaviour changes that reduce carbon emissions in the region of 7%-35%. And that’s just according to some more conservative estimates. 

The report also explores and investigates the reasons why tenants, despite good intentions, behave in ways that are often at odds with these values. The reasons why tenants often fail to follow up on values with concrete actions are many and varied – ranging from feeling powerless to making a difference (especially when others around them are not doing the ‘right’ thing), a lack of comfort, a mistrust that their accommodation provider is genuine and authentic in their sustainability efforts. A lack of information on personal consumption in comparison to others also plays a crucial role. 

Summary

As the BTR sector continues to grow at pace, tenant engagement will play an increasingly important role in retaining tenants as well as driving down carbon emissions.   

You can learn more about the role that community can play in achieve net zero and other sustainability targets by downloading our Changing Behaviours Report below.

Latest research has revealed that encouraging residents to make more sustainable decisions in their accommodation can help to reduce a building’s carbon emissions by up to 35%. An independent study entitled Changing Behaviours, conducted in collaboration by ASK4, Utopi and Spike Global, investigates the behaviour of residents living across a range of residential housing to determine how their energy use can affect net zero targets. The research focuses on the barriers currently preventing residents making a switch to more sustainable behaviours, the importance of education, and the role behavioural science and technology can play in reducing energy consumption.

The research reveals that 65% of millennials and 70% of Gen-Z, would be prepared to make major changes to their own lifestyles to combat climate change. The report also looks into the challenges the wider residential sector faces when it comes to energy efficacy and examines the best methods to reduce excess energy consumption. Strategies that encourage residents to conform to the wider group can be used to promote sustainable behaviour too. Delivering energy usage statistics and data directly to the end user in comparison to their neighbours’ energy consumption can result in a more considered approach to the amount of energy they use, ultimately leading to a reduction in carbon emissions.

As part of the research, Utopi compared two identical electrically heated student flats, one of which was heated between 18-22 degrees Celsius, with the other heated between 25-30 degrees. At the end of a six-month period, data revealed that the overheated flat used 1670% more electricity – equivalent to an additional £1474, or 1.65 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide.

Ben Roberts, Co-Founder & CMO of Utopi comments: “Excess energy consumption is a longstanding source of frustration within the residential market, and in particular within the PBSA sector which is why it’s crucial to communicate residents’ own energy use in a way that is clear and easy to understand. For example, students will often open a window or turn on a fan before turning down the heating, leading to unnecessary waste. Our own research reveals a real need to balance student freedom of behaviour with the need to meet carbon emissions and energy costs targets, and it is clear that turning the heating down by just a few degrees can save hundreds of pounds and reduce our carbon footprint.”

Jonny Wootten, Marketing Director at Spike Global, comments: “Industry net zero targets are inextricably linked to residents’ own energy and water consumption. As we enter a cost of living and ecological crisis there is a real emphasis on how we begin the conversation to empower residents to take positive action and reduce their energy waste. Not everyone may fully understand all the jargon, such as what a kilowatt hour means. We use resident portals to engage and educate residents directly, in a way that’s easy to understand.”

The report found that turning the heating up by three points in an average apartment can double the amount of electricity consumed. This poses a serious challenge for the PBSA sector, which relies on the ‘all-inclusive bills’ model to attract students. While 70% of students found all-inclusive bills to be a key desirability factory in their property search, damning data shows that students use up to 35% more electricity than accommodation where utilities are billed separately.

Jess Glover, Head of Marketing at ASK4, comments: “Clearly there is an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ attitude. There is a stark need for education in the PBSA sector, and the solution begins with raising awareness of residents’ energy use via easy to access data.”

This data helps residents recognise and understand their patterns of energy and water usage, and crucially compare their results to others. As one resident cited in the research: “we can only know [how to reduce our consumption] if they make us aware of [it] and the operators don’t do that”.  The research found that this approach is most successful when data is presented in an empowering manner that is easy, attractive, timely and social. One resident added: “You need to compare with something or someone. Without comparison of how you are doing, you don’t know how to interpret your usage.”

Furthermore, there is mounting evidence to suggest that investing in developing a community not only enhances the resident experience – it can also lead to better outcomes. Research revealed that residents will behave in a way that benefits the collective if they feel attracted to where they live. If people feel like they are part of a wider community tackling climate change, they are more likely to join the movement. The use of resident portals offers an effective way to foster a sense of belonging within a building.

Jonny Wootten adds: “Resident portals can be customised to include handy tips such as location of recycling bins, alongside energy use messaging, making it easy for residents to make small sustainable changes to the way they live. Pair this with personalised messaging to motivate the end user, and timely prompts are provided when residents are most likely to be receptive, and residentially providers could make great strides to meet their own ESG targets”

                                                                   Download your free copy of the report below:

Grosvenor Systems and Spike have today announced a new strategic alliance, enabling build-to-rent operators to benefit from a complete end-to-end property management and accounting solution.

Propman, Grosvenor Systems’ leading financial reporting and property management product, will be combined with Spike’s tenancy management solution, Spike Lettings, and award-winning resident engagement portal, Spike Living, to create an enhanced, simplified experience for tenants.

Grosvenor Systems’ market-leading product paired with Spike’s solutions will allow the entire tenant management process to be digitalised, helping to reduce costs and streamline communications between management teams and tenants. The online offering will modernise all stages of the tenant experience – from the marketing of properties, taking initial payments and reservations, sending and the signing of contracts, approving references to managing the ongoing management and accounting requirements of tenants once moved in.

Contracts and vital documentation will also be stored digitally, increasing security and making key information easily accessible. Notifications can be sent to tenants via push notifications whenever documents need to be reviewed or signed, allowing for full traceability.

Property Managers will also benefit from comprehensive tenancy management reporting, with automated monthly rent invoices eliminating time spent performing administrative tasks, giving staff more time to focus on value-add activities.

Additionally, the Spike Living portal, which has an intuitive smartphone app, lets tenants view financial information such as service charges or payment history directly. The portal will also allow tenants to view and register for onsite events, reserve amenities, interact with other tenants via clubs and forums, and learn about local retailers they could support.

Sarah Taylor, Managing Director, Grosvenor Systems, comments: “Building on our great relationship with Spike, we are excited to offer the first complete end-to-end service in the BTR marketplace, which puts the customer experience at the heart of property management. We’re looking forward to continuing to evolve and innovate our offering for customers.” 

Jeremy Heath-Smith, CEO of Spike, comments: “We are excited to be working with Grosvenor Systems. By combining our leading resident engagement and tenancy management software solutions with Propman, this complete solution will enable property managers to onboard tenants much faster and more efficiently, whilst providing a central place for tenants to manage their everyday needs.”