Private Rental Target Markets: A Comprehensive Spectrum

The residential real estate market has been segmented dichotomously into owners and renters. Given the various tenures and sub-markets of the renters, it is problematic to consider them as a homogeneous target market. Based on a thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with 16 residential real estate executives, this paper establishes six distinct private rental target markets including: 1) hard-to-house occupants, 2) affordability renters, 3) workforce residents, 4) transitional millennials, 5) lifestyle residents, and 6) returners. This paper is unique and noteworthy as it combines the fragmented literature on private renters with insights from residential real estate executives to produce a spectrum of target markets. In addition to validating the previous literature, this paper presents new target markets and offers marketing value propositions for each of the identified groups