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MIFLATS Flexible living for a future generation PRS pioneer and West End landlord Criterion Capital is looking to shake-up the private rented sector with a US-style service-driven concept. Miflats aims to provide Generation Rent with a flexibility of tenure not seen in the UK before, allowing tenants to upsize and downsize as required. Iain Murray, director of PRS at Criterion, says Miflats will be run more as a customer service business than as a PRS investor and that the concept is about giving tenants “finger-tip choice”. The Miflats process will be an entirely online transaction, allowing potential tenants to virtually pick their home, the package of service they want from broadband, on demand TV and film, laundry service to home furnishings, all the way down to whether you want the kitchen drawers stocked with teaspoons. A Miflats App will give customers instant
access to the Miflats team. “You’ve got to mirror the demographic that will occupy the flats,” says Murray.
But with such an emphasis on the online and openness through social media, Murray is acutely aware that the service Miflats offers has to be top notch. “People are less likely to believe what is written on a company website than they are elsewhere online,” he says “The landscape for the private rental
sector is changing apace and being a passive investor is no longer an option,” adds Murray. “The consumer is demanding a rental product and service that suits their lifestyle.”
Criterion has fast established itself in the
private rented sector with a pipeline of 10,000 flats for delivery by 2020.
www.miflats.com @miflats
LIDL Welcome to the Lidlclass German budget grocer Lidl has the quartet of established UK supermarkets shaking in the aisles. The firm has taken a record market share from Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrisons, some 3.6% in the latest figures, has well and truly disrupted the sector. With 608 stores in the UK, providing annual sales of more than £3bn, the chain has set itself a target of 1,500. And soon. Led by Ronny Gottschlich in the UK, Lidl
is investing £220m in stores and warehouses this year, aiming to open between 20 and 40 new locations per annum. Costs matter at Lidl and to provide
customers with quality at a lower price than its rivals, it cuts them anywhere its “Lidlers” can’t see, including using motion sensors to keep energy bills low.
www.lidl.co.uk @lidlUK
THECOLLECTIVE Affordable living with luxury benefits Today’s young professional is not willing to compromise on quality but with rising rents is often priced out of the environments that suit their ambitions. Step forward Reza Merchant, the 25-year- old founder of The Collective.
STUDENTCRIBS Taking student living upmarket Dungeons of filth, with empty beer bottles, crusty baked bean tins and a permanent air of the unwashed may be the general vision of student digs, but not everyone starting out in higher education wants to live like The Young Ones. Charlie Vaughan-Lee, the founder of Student Cribs, certainly didn’t. Frustrated with not being able to find decent quality housing to rent while studying at Bristol University, he decided to just buy one. Vaughan-Lee refurbished the property to a high standard and then rented it out to students at just above market rent. It was an instant hit. It turned out that if you offered students a decent, trendy, upmarket product, they didn’t trash it. They took pride in it. “We give students the benefit of the doubt and what we have found, time and time again, is that if you give them a nice place to start with, they will take better care of it,” says Vaughan-Lee. “Students aren’t treated like customers by the private rented sector, which is mad.” Founded in 2002, Student Cribs now has 100 properties across the UK, and an ambition to grow to 1,000 over the next three years.
www.student-cribs.com @studentcribs
Launched in 2012 using a £1.8m bridging loan secured against his family home, The Collective is a shared-living concept offering affordable rental options for people on median salaries. Run-down properties are turned into
compact living spaces with clever design packing entire living quarters into spaces as small as 120 sq ft. Rents range from £500 to £1,000 pcm, but include weekly linen changes, a room clean, and in the latest properties, access to spas and private dining rooms. “Time is everyone’s most valuable
commodity so extra services and whatever we can do to save time for our tenants are only going to add to their experience,” says Merchant. “I would go so far as to say that we are selling more than just a room. We are selling a lifestyle.” The Collective already has more than 1,500 units both existing and in the planning process and Merchant has ambitions to grow the company to 5,000 within the next 12 months.
www.thecollectiveltd.co.uk
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