An extraordinary opportunity exists right now for builders to load rental properties with amenity trends that will drive consistent, long-term demand, and it centers around satisfying millennials.

According to a 2021 Apartment List report, millennials are living in multifamily housing longer than previous generations. Although millennials are buying homes more and more lately as they settle into early adulthood, their homeownership rate — around 42% — actually lags that of Gen X and boomers when they were the same age (48% and 51% respectively). In fact, "18% of millennials say they plan to rent forever," per the report. And that's not just a momentary, COVID-induced spike as that figure has consistently gone up since 2018. Factor in that millennials are the largest living adult generation as of 2020, per Pew Research, and there looks to be sustained demand for multifamily buildings that appeal to this demographic, particularly ones that focus on things like tech, sustainability, and authenticity.

Defining millennials

As with other generational labels, what makes someone a millennial is fuzzy. Pew Research categorizes them as anyone born between 1981 and 1996 while other sources extend that range to 2000. So broadly speaking, millennials are in their early twenties to 40 years old right now, meaning they are solid income-earners and an excellent target market for multifamily rentals. For many in this age group, who face the combined weight of student debt and post-COVID uncertainty, renting is more obtainable and more appealing than home buying.

Lifestyle habits

It's tough to make universal statements about a group of more than 70 million people, but millennials presumably value walkability, parking and security like most other renters. On top of those, there are certain amenity trends where millennials place even more value based on their life experiences.

For one, millennials have lived in a wired world since they were born. Features like community Wi-Fi and fast internet connectivity that were once extravagances are now expected. They anticipate that their devices will interconnect easily — phones, thermostats, doorbells, appliances, basically anything that plugs in. For them, a home without smart devices might as well be one with holes in the roof.

In addition to high-tech convenience, millennials want attention to eco-friendliness. According to Nielsen, 75% of millennials are "definitely or probably" changing their habits to reduce their impact on the environment. Sustainable materials and fixtures or ones made by socially responsible companies might seem like a dispensable extra cost to builders, but consider that the same poll found 80% of millennials are willing to pay more for those exact things.

Millennials, though, also grew up targeted with nonstop marketing, and so they tend to mix a healthy dose of corporate skepticism with brand loyalty. They tend to disdain obviously shallow claims (greenwashing), but they can also be intensely loyal to brands that deliver quality products and are invested in a long-term cultural consciousness.

Capturing millennial attention

The tricky part for builders who want to entice millennials is how to weave these threads of technology, sustainability and authenticity into a property that is also easily marketable and within the typical renter's budget.

Technology

Think about high-tech as being more about convenience than flashiness. Consider, for example, an automated delivery center. A 2018 National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC) study found that the average apartment community receives around 150 packages a week — and even more over the holidays — and that was pre-pandemic. Simply having an automated delivery site provides low-friction, secure dropoff and pickup that's driven automatically by renters' smartphone apps. It's a low labor cost for management and a perk for millennials. Apply this thinking to everything from appliance choice to home security, and you're well on your way to finding millennial renters who are happy to pay for extra conveniences.

Sustainability

Millennials don't want to spend any time researching their home's environmental impact or doing the legwork of finding out how they can change a property to be more eco-conscious. They just want these things to exist. For example, another NMHC report from 2020 found that nearly 80% of renters say they are either "interested in" or "wouldn't rent an apartment at a property that didn't have" a recycling program and noted that many renters are willing to pay more for sustainable living. Instituting these amenity trends from the start, therefore, is worth upgrading at build time.

Authenticity

Here, there really aren't shortcuts. Builders can ease into establishing it, though, by partnering with institutions that already have the authenticity millennial renters seek. It could involve filling the rental space with known-quality fixtures or leasing retail spots to trusty businesses or nonprofits. Maximizing these angles has a mutual benefit: helping brands and organizations gain recognition and loyalty while the builder catches the reflected authenticity.

Threading these together

Uniting all these apartment amenities for millennials in your rental builds doesn't have to be complicated or expensive. You can easily strike the right balance by finding things that do a couple or all of these things at once.

One simple thing is choosing smart appliances. These merge millennial-friendly features with top-tier yet affordable products. When tech-savvy millennial renters see the Samsung name on a smart device, they already know the quality is there. From a range that learns how you like to cook to high-efficiency, voice-controlled HVAC hardware to washers that sense how dirty clothes are to adjust energy use, Samsung provides many options that will keep millennials renting for a long time, just like they want to. Plus, initiatives like Samsung's environmentally conscious products allow everyone to feel good about what's in their home.

Remember, the vast majority of millennials are willing to pay more for these conveniences. Even a simple addition like installing affordable smart appliances will leverage these three amenity trends and draw in millennials who will gladly pay higher rents for a higher quality of living.