Go Compare have researched what the renting population of the UK are looking for in a rental property and what landlords actually offer in their advertisements. Survey questions included thoughts around the importance of quality of the area, number of bedrooms, and additional amenities such as cleaning or concierge services.

These results were compared against rental ads on RightMove which were crawled for common words and phrases to show what landlords are actually advertising.

They survey found that 40% of all 18-24 year old UK renters believed that the number of bedrooms was very important when looking for a property.  30% wanted their properties to be unfurnished, and 48% thought that being close to work or university was somewhat important, with 25% of people believing that is was very important and 11% believed that this wasn’t important at all.

Just 3% of landlords mention whether a cleaning service is available, but 21% of the 18-24 year olds would like a weekly cleaning service available in the property, with renters in Leeds wanting cleaning services the most at 30%.  Only 13% would like to live in a property with a concierge or serviced accommodation, Gloucester had the highest amount of renters who wanted this service with 29%.

Whilst the prices of houses have begun to decrease for the first time in over a decade, house prices still remain relatively high, meaning renting is the only viable option for the majority. GoCompare’s latest tool does provide useful insight into what tenants are looking for.