HomeViews report unpacks new BTR survey findings + Rightmove search data

The survey asked questions about how people found their homes and what they valued most about them. Respondents were also asked about how they would describe a BTR home and whether they were familiar with the term ‘Build to Rent’. Rightmove added unique insights into how home-hunters are searching for, and finding, BTR homes on Rightmove.

HomeViews Co-founder Hannah Marsh recently presented the results of this survey at the 2024 ARL Conference, alongside Tim Bannister, who shared the latest search insights from Rightmove. Here we share a few highlights from the full report: From Research to Resident: Guiding the BTR Consumer Journey.

Most BTR enquirers on Rightmove also enquire to PRS…

…and, of those, PRS gets 3 enquiries for every 1 BTR enquiry…

…but increasing numbers of new enquirers are ‘finding’ BTR on Rightmove…

…and those who enquired about BTR before are increasingly likely to enquire again

5% of BTR residents surveyed said they would consider using the same landlord for their next home…

…and the things that attracted them to BTR before had now become even more important to them

Security was very important to BTR residents, but was mentioned by only 4 of the 10 BTR sites analysed

Download your copy of the report

We believe the best information about a residential development comes from the people living there. Owners and tenants have a lot of useful information to share with their prospective neighbours, not just on the property itself and its locality, but also on the development and building management.

Does it matter how recent reviews are?

We often encourage Partners to regularly collect reviews. This keeps them in the running for our annual Resident Choice Awards, but it’s also something that consumers value.

Research by Power Reviews found that 64% of consumers said they were more likely to buy a product with fewer, more recent reviews than if it had a higher volume of reviews published three or more months ago.

44% of consumers in that same study wanted to ideally be able to find reviews written within the past month. And 62% would not purchase a product if the only reviews available were published a year or more ago.

How many reviews do you need?

Brightlocal data is again the best place to turn to understand the broad spread of opinions shown by consumers. In 2025, 14% of consumers wanted to see 100+ reviews in order to trust a company’s average star rating. However, the majority of consumers said that 20-49 reviews was enough for them to trust an average rating (33%), while 22% said that 50-99 reviews were enough.

How much should you engage with reviews?

Consumers are more consistent on how much they want to see companies responding to reviews. 89% were likely to use a business that repsonded to all reviews, whether positive or negative. Far fewer (55%) were likely to use a business that only responded to negative reviews.

As we stated above, responding to positive and negative reviews clearly demonstrates to prospective residents that you care.