Tenant life isn’t always easy – just ask a renter. Between rising costs and a housing shortage, quality rentals are sorely lacking across Australian cities. And even if you’re lucky enough to land a place, there’s a chance it won’t be much more than a roof over your head.
For build-to-rent developer and operator Home, though, rentals ought to feel like home: comfortable, for starters, and suited to the demands of modern life. That means offering more than the typical lease.
“It’s about elevating the resident experience,” says Nick Spyropoulos, general manager of Home Docklands. “The whole community and the design of the building are based on meeting the needs of our renters and catering to their lifestyle.” It was the same case at the developer’s first two locations: Home Southbank and Home Richmond.
Build-to-rent – where housing exists just to be rented – isn’t a big thing in Australia just yet, though developers like Home are trying to change that. “Australia has traditionally been build-to-sell arrangements where you sell to an owner and it’s managed as an investment through a short-stay operator or a rental provider,” Spyropoulos says. “But you can really do some amazing things for your resident community when you manage the entire building and you’re not relying on an owners corporation or a strata manager.”
It means that, with developments like the new Home Docklands, rental properties can be focused on the needs of everyday tenant life and providing an ideal home.
Spyropoulos sees a growing demand from tenants for freedom, personalisation and access to more than just what’s within an apartment’s four walls. The ability to tweak and customise a living space, for instance, is a high priority. “Some people want to personalise the space, repaint walls,” he says. “One family was in a three-bedroom [apartment] and they had a baby coming, so they did some wallpaper and a feature wall for the kids’ room.”
Increasingly, renters also want to make sure their home is free from lifestyle restrictions that may have led to bad tenant experiences in the past. “Definitely having pet-friendly facilities and buildings [is important],” he says. “People are very attached to their animals these days, … We really want people to feel at home and be able to do a lot within the community and not have to travel externally. Our community events are also popular and a key part of the Home lifestyle.”
Beyond their own space, though, modern tenants are also looking for a more complete and well-appointed living experience that hasn’t always been typical of rentals. This might mean access to co-working facilities like meeting rooms, while health and wellness is a plus for the end of the day. “We’ve got a heated 25-metre pool and spa, infrared sauna, ice baths,” says Spyropoulos. “We host wellness activities like community workouts, Pilates, yoga, sound bath meditations – and you don’t have to travel very far to do it.”
A thriving community and social life – whether meeting new friends or entertaining the current batch – is important to renters, too. Tenant-controlled social areas such as resident lounges and communal entertaining spaces are increasingly common. “We have private dining rooms that the residents can rent exclusively,” Spyropoulos says. “We have our Beats Lounge with the most incredible views, a pool table, cocktail bar, vinyl record player and great collection of records. And you can rent the space to accommodate 50 of your friends.”
Overall, it’s clear the rental game is changing. As services and amenities aren’t available everywhere, it’s easy to see why modern renters gravitate towards living arrangements that offer more than just an apartment.
“The whole thing is to make life as easy as possible for our residents, make them feel that they’re safe and they feel at home, and really just offering hotel-style services and amenities in a rental environment,” says Spyropoulos.
This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with Home Docklands.