To be successful in the US residential market, developers and landlords need to provide a range of extra facilities for residents from dog day care to a gym, delegates heard at PropertyEU's Residential Investment Briefing which was held at Expo Real in Munich.
To be successful in the US residential market, developers and landlords need to provide a range of extra facilities for residents from dog day care to a gym, delegates heard at PropertyEU's Residential Investment Briefing which was held at Expo Real in Munich.
‘To compete in the marketplace in the US you have to provide facilities that young professionals now demand, such as a pool and outside seating areas, a gym, a cinema and dog day care, as pets are ever more important,’ said Thomas Beaton, senior vice-president of The Dolben Company.
‘The other must is technological innovation, all rent paying and service calls are done online but also tenants can visualise their furniture inside the flat before they move in,’ he added.
All these elements are crucial in order to have full occupancy and to be able to charge high rents. In Europe the situation is very different: ‘Here the housing shortage is so acute that it is more about need and less about differentiation,’ said Marcus Cieleback, head of research at Patrizia Immobilien. ‘We need more affordable housing, and that is why I do not expect these US trends like dog day care to materialise in Europe any time soon.’
There is one significant similarity between Europe and the US, experts agreed: supply is not keeping up
with demand, especially in the big cities, and more construction activity is badly needed. ‘The urbanisation trend will continue,’ said Ralph Winter, founder of Corestate Capital. ‘Developers should really wake up to that demand.’
