Premium Rents For Socially Compatiable HMOs?

Exclusive new insight from COHO, the HMO management platform, reveals that almost half of shared living tenants would happily pay a rental premium of up to 10% if they knew that they were socially compatible with their housemates.

Shared living is something that many people have or will experience at some point in their life, and perhaps the most common motivation for moving into a shared house, sometimes referred to as an HMO, is the relative affordability they provide when compared to the wider private rental sector (PRS).

In fact, a recent survey commissioned by COHO*, found that the majority of tenants (57.5%) viewed the affordability of shared living as the biggest benefit from their time in an HMO.

It’s no surprise that affordability is the first thing that comes to mind when it comes to the benefits of shared living, especially given that Britain’s average rent has increased by +8.1% in the past year alone to sit at £1,338 per month*.

However, affordability isn’t the only reason that people choose to live in shared houses and the survey from COHO found that the social aspect associated with a shared living arrangement was also a big benefit to tenants.

In fact, 48.6% of respondents ranked the ‘sociable way of living’ as a key benefit, making it the second most prominent, whilst 43% said it was ‘good for people moving to new cities’ looking to form social relationships, the third biggest benefit.

COHO then asked if renters would be willing to pay up to a 10% rental premium, if it ensured that they were living with like-minded housemates who share similar interests.

Whilst 26.5% stated that like-minded housemates were preferable but cheaper rents were a greater priority, 47.2% stated that they would be happy to pay as much as 10% more in rent to find the perfect house share.

Such is the desire for social compatibility within a house share that 65.9% of those surveyed stated that knowing what their housemates are like before moving in was of great importance, with 39.8% of them assigning it the highest possible importance score

Furthermore, almost 40% of respondents said that they would be more eager to make their move to a shared living property knowing that they were compatible with their housemates.

Survey results