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The Rise Of The “Forever Renter” And What This Means For The Market


The biggest shift in the property market is a growing number of people who could buy, deciding not to. For a hundred years, the property industry has run on one assumption: renting is a waiting room, ownership is the destination. That assumption no longer holds.


TheC clearest evidence is in how renters describe their own choice. Entrata's April 2026 survey of over 2,000 US renters found 81% now call renting the smarter financial move — up from 72% among Gen Z a year earlier — and 71% say the American Dream itself is evolving. That's not the language of people settling. It's the language of people redefining what winning looks like.


It would be easy to file this under the usual "priced out" story. Yes, affordability explains why someone can't buy; it doesn't explain why a wealthy individual, or a dual-income professional couple with a healthy deposit sitting in savings, chooses to keep renting anyway. That is a preference, not a constraint and this is what the market is built around.


What makes this different from every "generation rent" story before it is who is choosing it: young professionals renting for the flexibility to move for work; wealthy households keeping capital liquid rather than locking it into one asset; internationally mobile executives who need to relocate on six weeks' notice, not sixteen. RentCafe's analysis of US Census data found millionaire renter households grew 204% between 2019 and 2023, to nearly 13,700 — outpacing the 169% growth in millionaire homeowners over the same period.


The intent data confirms it from the other direction. Rently's 2026 Renting by Generation Report found mortgage plans among renters have fallen from roughly 15% to just 6.4% in a year, and a third of millennial and Gen Z non-owners now say they may never buy — not out of despair, but as a settled plan. In the UK, the House of Commons Library found 59% of 35-to-54-year-olds are unsure whether they'll ever own — a cohort that, a generation ago, would already be two or three houses into ownership.


Capital has read this correctly, even where the industry has been slower to build for it. UK build-to-rent investment hit a record £5.3 billion in 2025; Q1 2026 alone brought in £795 million, the strongest first quarter since 2022, with full-year volumes forecast at £5.7 billion. Occupancy sits near 97%, and rental premiums have nearly doubled since 2016. Institutional money doesn't move at that pace toward something it expects to be temporary, and it isn't moving toward the bottom of the market — it's moving toward the buildings, cities and price points where forever renters actually want to live.


For agents, developers and operators, the implication is simple: a market built to sell people out of renting can't also be the market that serves them well inside it. Buildings need to be run, staffed and designed as though the tenant intends to stay — because increasingly, they do. That means service standards, amenity design and lease flexibility built for years of tenancy, not for the few months before a deposit clears. Relationships that used to end at completion now need to extend across years of renewal and relocation. Firms that treat this as a smaller version of the old business will lose the client to whoever treats it as the real one.


This isn't about people giving up on a home. It's about the definition of home changing, permanently, for a meaningful share of the market, at every income level. The winners of the next decade won't be the ones still using renting as a rehearsal for ownership. They'll be the ones built for people who intend to rent well.


Article: By Mohamed Mussa, Managing Director, Chestertons Global



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Permasteelisa Group, the global leader in the design, construction and installation of technically advanced building envelopes, has been appointed to deliver the glazing and cladding at St. John’s Wood Square, a prestigious new development in the heart of London.

The St John’s Wood Square project is the redevelopment of the 5.5-acre former St. John’s Wood Barracks, previously occupied by the King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery. The residential development will comprise nine buildings, ranging in height from three to six storeys, offering a total of 179 residential units.

Permasteelisa will design, engineer, manufacture and install over 15,000 sq m of custom-made architectural cladding across all blocks. For the main elevations, largely made up of precast elements, the company will supply tripled glazed punched windows and sliding doors, balustrades and metal balconies.

In addition, specific elements will be provided for the wrap-around glazing, roof mansards and external 'veil' structures that slope against the vertical walls within the penthouses, as well as the glazing that will occupy the ground floor on the street front.

The design phase of the work has already begun at Permasteelisa’s design centre in Italy, where the bespoke elements of the façade will also be assembled in its specialist manufacturing facility. On site work will start at the end of 2024, with scheduled completion of the façade works planned for the summer of 2026.

Liam Cummins, Permasteelisa Group’s CEO, comments: "We are proud to have been chosen for such an exclusive project as St. John's Wood Square which, due to its size, logistic complexity and challenging timeline is the ideal project to further demonstrate our ability to meet the needs of our customers' expectations.”

Nicola Calzolari, Executive General Manager for Permasteelisa in Italy, adds: “This new contract confirms once again the strategic importance of the London market for Permasteelisa."

“For St. John's Wood Square, our team in Italy is responsible for the delivery of the entire design and production of the customised façade elements, whilst our colleagues in the UK will ensure the efficient management of all on site activities.”

“We are already enjoying our work on the design phase and our UK colleagues look forward to starting the installation on site by the end of the year and to seeing the project façade works successfully completed by summer 2026.”

John Conboye, Executive General Manager for Permasteelisa in the UK, adds: “Being part of this prestigious scheme will add to our already impressive portfolio in London. As a Group, we have delivered many of the capital’s iconic developments including The Shard, 22 Bishopsgate, 20 Fenchurch Street (a.k.a. the Walkie Talkie building) and significant residential projects at Battersea Power Station.”

Permasteelisa Group is the leading global contractor in the design, engineering, project management, manufacture, installation and after-sales service of technically advanced building envelopes.



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