Tenants’ Priority of Renovation Measures and Their Willingness to Pay Higher Rent to Implement These

Abstract

In 2013 a web-based questionnaire was sent out to residents living in apartments in multifamily housing areas with the aim to get their opinions on what renovation measures they prioritized and what they would be willing to pay in terms of percentage rent increase. On a neighbourhood level, the result showed that higher indoor standard followed by higher standard on the exterior façade and windows were on the top of the list followed by better light environment, parking spaces and waste rooms. On apartment level, the most important measures were renovation of kitchen and bathroom followed by a reduced noise from neighbours and increased thermal comfort. The willingness or ability to pay for these measures was however quite low. More than one third of the tenants could not accept any rent increase while nearly half of the residents could accept a rent increase of 1–10% and very few could accept rent increases above 10%. Considering the cost for implementing the desired measures, the rent increase would probably be considerably higher than 10%. This is why it is of crucial importance to have a close dialogue with residents at an early stage in the renovation process in order to find the most cost-efficient package of renovation measures that responds to the technical, environmental and social needs of the buildings and their residents.