Demand for the Comforts of Home Drives Change in Corporate Housing Market
Despite a shaky couple of years during the Great Recession, reports The New York Times, the market for corporate housing rentals is stronger than ever. There are now 56,000 operational corporate housing units throughout the United States, with several thousand more located in Canada. Many of the most popular services now offer rentals to more than 100,000 clients each and every year.
While the demand for corporate housing apartments is back to pre-recession levels, the type of housing businessmen and women are looking for has changed. Gone are the days when business clients were satisfied with what were effectively hotel rooms at a slightly cheaper long term rate. These days, if corporate housing apartments don’t offer all the amenities of home, chances are they aren’t going to do well.
Temporary Corporate Housing Remains Incredibly Advantageous
Corporate housing apartments remain so incredibly popular because they offer many benefits to clients and the companies they work for. As the San Francisco-based web newspaper SF Gate details, renting corporate housing apartments allows people to relocate as soon as they have a new job, without having to immediately track down a new permanent apartment or house. Using corporate housing is also markedly more affordable than staying in a hotel for any extended period of time.
Demand for the Feel of Home Pushes Homeowners to Rent, Brings Luxury Corporate Housing Prominence
As CNBC reports, the majority of renters are tired of having to stay in hotel-like corporate housing apartments, whether they’re relocating for a job or they’re simply on a short term business trip. What are they looking for instead? Someplace that feels like home.
Renters today are expecting all the amenities of home, whether that means a big screen TV, a full-sized kitchen, a bathtub or otherwise. In fact, the demand for home-like amenities is so huge that in cities without top of the line corporate housing apartments, many have taken to renting actual houses for six to 12 months at a time. Responding to this change in customer appetites, many corporate housing services now allow clients to bring pets to stay with them, and they offer separate bedrooms, living rooms, and kitchens. In short, even though corporate housing isn’t a permanent home, the best businesses now make sure it at least feels like one.
If you’ve had a lot of experience using short term corporate housing, have you noticed a change in the offerings of corporate housing companies? Let us know in the comments below.
