The pandemic and now the cost-of-living crisis have forced young adults to find ways to supplement their income. As many as one in five young adults are currently looking for a second income stream to support their lifestyle.
This follows two years of relative oppression for this group, which was in many respects the worst hit financially by the pandemic, during which many created side hustles – a trend that is still on the rise. More young people than ever have their own enterprise, whether that’s full time or alongside their normal job. As a result, they’re looking for homes that give them the opportunity to scale their business without a large capital investment.
Buy-to-rent developers need to create amenity that can help them to harness their skillsets. That could be spaces to conduct client meetings, create amazing content or get hands-on and craft goods. The cottage industry has evolved – and where during the Industrial Revolution it gave birth to weavers’ cottages, new urban resi developments need to tackle this trend head-on to create versatile multifunctional spaces that can help these young creatives excel in the digital industrial revolution.
Providing adequate services and amenities will not only allow the creators to flourish and scale their business; it can also help residential operators fill their vacant apartments at speed and maintain long-term tenants if these amenities are unique. Especially as Vita’s Future Living Report found 78% of people would move home to a property if it provided access to amenities and services to support the growth of their business.
Providing adequate services and amenities will not only allow the creators to flourish and scale their business; it can also help residential operators fill their vacant apartments at speed and maintain long-term tenants if these amenities are unique.
As a part of the research, business owners were asked which amenities would support their business growth. The results were split evenly with workshop space and workbenches coming top (26%), followed by scalable storage spaces, photography and podcast studios, all with a quarter of the votes. Community events backing into business development also ranked very highly. Entrepreneurs want to connect to like-minded individuals, skill share, develop their business and upskill in areas they’re not experts in, such as marketing, accountancy and funding.
Clearly, there’s high demand for creator living that is relatively untapped – while most buy-to-rent operators are offering co-working spaces, they don’t yet deliver against this market of entrepreneurs who are actively trying to accelerate their own business. A place to store the products they’re selling on Etsy or a sound-proofed studio to record content for a client on Fiverr are all easy wins for operators but could be a huge differentiator in a competitive marketplace championing unrivalled amenities.
Rob Parker is head of data and insight at Vita Group
No comments yet