Insights from Turner: Gen-Z Is Saying What?!

This month we are looking at the biggest trends in student housing reviews. Specifically, we are analyzing what operational areas are driving student residents’ satisfaction and dissatisfaction, deep diving into comparisons versus previous years and what we saw in multifamily as a whole.

In case you missed it or want to dive deeper, we previously published two blogs that will help you contextualize this analysis further:

• How Students are Different than Conventional Renters
• A Recap of Resident Satisfaction Trends in 2024 

Introduction   

The Big Picture: student residents in 2024 proved to be quite different than conventional renters. They cared more about Amenities and less about strong Maintenance Service than your average renter. However, satisfaction is continuing to trend down, suggesting that the successes we saw in 2024 for conventional housing may need further re-tooling to land with this younger demographic.

Why it Matters: multifamily operations can never be a one-size-fits-all approach. Student renters (who are predominantly Gen Z) will be entering into the conventional market in droves over the next handful of years. To no surprise, these data savvy individuals are inclined to do scrupulous research and, therefore, care immensely about online reputation and resident satisfaction. 72% of Gen Z prospects say they care whether residents at a property are happy and 93.4% of Gen Z say reviews affect their decision to lease. It would behoove operators to understand the psyche of this group as it will help student operators tailor services in 2025 and could be predictive for conventional operators in the years ahead.   

4 Key Takeaways from the Data

1. Sentiment is Going in the Opposite Direction in Student Housing: while multifamily as a whole trended up in sentiment for the first time since 2020, student housing by itself continued its downward slide. In fact, satisfaction is at the worst level since 2016, falling to a compliment to complaint ratio of 51:49%.  
    
    
    
2. Why? A Big Reason is Transparent Communication is Lacking in Student Housing: as noted in both of 2025’s previously published blogs, Communication and Financial Clarity are critical operative areas for multifamily in today’s landscape. Unfortunately, student renters feel like operators are still missing the mark. Financial complaints spiked 13% year-over-year and were present in a staggering 37.25% of 1- and 2-star reviews, well above the lifetime average of 31.23%. Communication followed a similar trend, seeing complaints go up 2% from 2023 to 2024. This is an inverse trend to multifamily as a whole. 
    
   Complaints in both respects have been steadily rising in student housing since COVID. This is likely a generational insight. Forbes published an article in 2022 saying that strong communication with Gen Z is not about just “fessing up when we mess up,” but rather appealing to their desire for “Proactive Transparency”. Specifically, Forbes encouraged companies to find opportunities to show Gen Z how things work and to tell them what is going on, “who is doing what tasks, and how the team is going to tackle challenges.” 
    
   Operators must continue to work to find the right blend of chatbots and centralized teams with readily available, informed and empathetic onsite support to ensure Gen Z residents feel properly communicated with, especially in critical areas like Financial Clarity.  
    
   If you are curious what the ideal blend looks like, I highly recommend checking out J Turner Research’s latest research report: The Internet Adventure, Part V.  
3. Amenities Drive Satisfaction Much More in Student Housing: so far this year, we have really emphasized that having the best amenities does not seem to drive resident satisfaction the way it once did. But that is not the case in student housing. Students still REALLY care about their amenities, and want them in both good condition and open for use. It starts at the most basic level – look at how often students talk about Amenities within their online reviews in comparison to renters as a whole: 
   

   But what is even more relevant is the impact they have on driving online reputation. An eyepopping 33.36% of 4- and 5-star reviews left by students compliment the Amenities, well above the downward trending number of 19.30% in housing as a whole.

4. Maintenance Excellence Continues to Underwhelm Students… but Poor Performance is Costly: conversely to the trend with Amenities, Maintenance Service does not seem to move the needle as much. Specifically, we see it in the students’ lack of acknowledgment for a job well done. Students complain at a comparable rate to all renters but are far less likely to dole out compliments regarding strong Maintenance Service.  

 
Unfortunately, this translates to operators needing to still heavily invest in strong maintenance performance, but it is more of a defensive – rather than offensive – strategy in terms of driving online reputation. 

Predictions for 2025: Areas Deserving Increased Focus

1. Legalized Marijuana Will Not Vibe with Your Online Reputation: complaints amongst student renters for Smoking Enforcement have trended up 3 years in a row, most notably going up by an incredible 43% between 2023 and 2024. While it is still not an often-mentioned category in the grander review landscape, the accessibility of marijuana in many states can frustrate residents who do not feel like the staff is enforcing the rules they have set.
   
   Student Operators need to keep this on their radar as according to Flowhub, “Gen Z is the fastest-growing group of marijuana users… Year-over-year, these young adults’ percentage share of total cannabis sales has grown by 11.3%.”
   
2. Covid Babies Will Continue to Care about Cleanliness: student renters discussed General Cleanliness, Pests, and Pet Waste more often in 2024 than they did in 2023. In fact, in 2024, student reviewers talked more about General Cleanliness than conventional renters did. Both General Cleanliness and Pest complaints ranked as two of the top-five most negatively trending categories in student reviews.
   It figures to be an operational area of continued importance for appealing to a generation partly defined by their experience during the COVID-19 Pandemic. 

3. Immediacy May Always Matter to Gen Z: As we discussed previously, maintenance alone does not make student renters raving fans. While we discussed the need to ensure Maintenance Service is tightly managed due to student’s propensity to complain at similar rates to conventional renters, Maintenance Timeliness has risen as an operational area that has the power to derail student properties’ online reputations.
   
   In 2024, student renters complained about Maintenance Timeliness 25% more often than renters as a whole. In fact, the Maintenance Timeliness complaint rate hit its highest mark since 2016, providing further evidence of Gen Z’s need for immediate gratification. 
    

Operators would be smart to do whatever they can to provide support for immediate resolution, even potentially exploring maintenance solves that don’t involve professionals entering the unit. For example, consultative phone calls and instructional videos may help meet students’ demands in the fast fashion they are looking for.  
 
 
ABOUT THIS BLOG: 

The insights in this blog came from utilizing J Turner Research’s text categorization tool, Einstein. Einstein uses Thought Analysis, a proprietary Ai software, to objectively show you your operational strengths and weaknesses based on anything anyone has ever said about you online in reviews. What is being said is incredibly valuable because it is essentially the "why" behind your scores. Reviews are unprompted descriptions of why a resident is satisfied (left a high star rating) or dissatisfied (left a low star rating). This means that what is being complimented and complained about can be seen by owners and operators as drivers of satisfaction/dissatisfaction.