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Forget Pools and Gyms. Today’s Renters Demand Neighbor Happy Hours and Pet Turfs
By Pete Grieve MONEY RESEARCH COLLECTIVE
Given steep increases in rent prices, some renters are re-evaluating their housing budgets and priorities.
The list of amenities that renters value most has some surprises: Rental buildings that feature gyms or pools actually tend to underperform, while social-living perks like happy hours and co-working spaces are apparently in vogue.
Gyms and pools, which have long been considered two of the most-desired amenities in a luxury building, are losing their appeal with today’s renters, according to a recent report from home search site Zillow that considered data from about 5.6 million listings.
Zillow says the number of “saves” on a listing is a proxy for demand and can suggest that an apartment will rent faster. Its findings? Listings that boast building happy hours draw a 50% increase in saves, and ones that mention turf pet areas get 76% more saves than other units.
Meanwhile, listings mentioning fitness centers are saved 26% less often than comparable units, and there’s a 10% drop-off for listings with pools.
“Renters are rethinking what they want and need in a home, looking beyond buildings with traditional rental amenities in favor of those with features and services that better suit their lifestyle and budget,” according to the report.
Nationally, rents are up 3.4% year over year and are 33.6% higher than before the pandemic, Zillow reports. Given these steep increases, some renters are re-evaluating their housing budgets and priorities.
Amenities like pools and gyms tend to come at a cost. A 2019 report from Hotpads.com found that the typical premium renters pay for apartments with pools was $70 and $62 for gyms. It’s unclear if these amenities themselves have fallen out of favor with renters or if the issue is simply the higher price tags for units with these upscale amenities.
Semi-regular happy hours and pet-friendly spaces, on the other hand, appear to add a lot of value for renters and likely have a much lower cost for the building.
“[Renters] are prioritizing practical amenities while also seeking community-focused perks like co-working spaces and social events,” Emily McDonald, rental trends expert at Zillow, said in the report. “These features offer a balance of convenience and lifestyle enhancement.”
Some other popular amenities are more stylistic. Most notably, “modern farmhouse features,” including butcher-block countertops and barn doors, are among the top apartment features desired by renters.
Top 10 rental amenities on Zillow
Here are the 10 most popular amenities in 2024 based on how frequently listings are saved on the home search site:
- Off-street parking: 85% saves per day increase
- In-unit laundry: 76% increase
- Turf (pet area): 76% increase
- Air filtration: 72% increase
- Finished basement: 72% increase
- Butcher block (countertops): 58% increase
- Barn door: 56% increase
- Reserved parking: 52% increase
- Modern farmhouse: 51% increase
- Happy hour: 50% increase
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Pete Grieve is a New York-based reporter who covers personal finance news. At Money, Pete covers trending stories that affect Americans’ wallets on topics including car buying, insurance, housing, credit cards, retirement and taxes. He studied political science and photography at the University of Chicago, where he was editor-in-chief of The Chicago Maroon. Pete began his career as a professional journalist in 2019. Prior to joining Money, he was a health reporter for Spectrum News in Ohio, where he wrote digital stories and appeared on TV to provide coverage to a statewide audience. He has also written for the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Sun-Times and CNN Politics. Pete received extensive journalism training through Report for America, a nonprofit organization that places reporters in newsrooms to cover underreported issues and communities, and he attended the annual Investigative Reporters and Editors conference in 2021. Pete has discussed his reporting in interviews with outlets including the Columbia Journalism Review and WBEZ (Chicago's NPR station). He’s been a panelist at the Chicago Headline Club’s FOIA Fest and he received the Institute on Political Journalism’s $2,500 Award for Excellence in Collegiate Reporting in 2017. An essay he wrote for Grey City magazine was published in a 2020 book, Remembering J. Z. Smith: A Career and its Consequence.