The Rental Living Summit is one of the sector's most influential events, bringing together the leaders, innovators, and decision-makers shaping the future of rental housing. As the industry continues to evolve, it provides a vital platform for discussing the challenges and opportunities facing Build to Rent, Purpose-Built Student Accommodation, and the wider rental market.
At RentGuarantor, we're proud to have been the headline sponsor demonstrating our commitment to supporting the growth, accessibility, and long-term success of the rental living sector. Across the Summit, I was delighted to contribute in a couple of ways, appearing on a conference panel discussion and presenting a Masterclass to the wider conference audience about the wider professional guarantor sector and outlook. Our service helps landlords, operators, and residents remove barriers to renting, making us a natural partner for an event dedicated to driving innovation, collaboration, and positive change across the rental living industry.
After an introduction from Bruce Evans, Chief Commercial Officer of RentGuarantor, that spirit of collaboration was evident from the outset; the opening keynote from Adam Daniels - CEO of Vistry, really set the tone of the calibre of speakers across the C-suite of investors. He highlighted how greater collaboration through public private partnerships will be needed to support housing and infrastructure looking ahead.
The overall sentiment of the event was positive. There is an acceptance that more people are going to rent moving forward and renting allows greater flexibility, disposable income and suits a more modern lifestyle. This is supported by some of our own proprietary data collected from our Rent Positive Survey conducted in March of this year. 88% of respondents felt that renting suited modern lifestyles better.
Operators and developers are rising to the challenge that tenants are expecting more from their landlords. Lesley Robert’s presentation on tenant expectations looking ahead was a real eye opener when looking at what Gen Alpha’s behaviours are going to be like along with their own personal AI assistant and perhaps even pet robot… who knows!
Towards the end of the day, we heard about the rise of SFH housing and how forecasting voids in SFH vs multi-family is a completely different model with different models and tenant behaviours. This dovetailed nicely into what renting is going to look like outside of the Big 6 and into the regional towns and cities.
It was great to hear from Thomasin Renshaw MD of Greystar talk about their new Garden Village concept. I mentioned on stage competing against Greystar for a parcel of consented land from a Master-developer like Urban & Civic 10 years ago would not have happened – today it makes perfect sense! It will be interesting to see other developer / operators follow suit and hopefully contribute to much needed housing demand in the regions of all types.
I was also fortunate to be joined on stage by Justine Edmonds who is MD in waiting at APO. Her insight on younger generations being smarter with money and how that relates back to maintaining relationships with younger tenants looking ahead sparked the conversation that keep creeping up about ‘subscription-living’.
As a headline sponsor at the event, we were genuinely impressed by Property Week’s set-up. I had a blast speaking to everyone about the Renters’ Rights Act and (of course!) RentGuarantor. I can’t promise this blog will be back next year – but we will certainly be back at the PW Rental Summit in 12 months-time.
