Undercover Ops: The Verdict on BtR’s Front Line

Ed Quinn has a memorable face, which became an occupational hazard for the Franklin St. head of advisory. He went undercover to mystery-shop 25 build-to-rent assets across the eastern seaboard to develop a new operational benchmarking scorecard. It was not without its challenges. “We wanted to do the first sweep ourselves … I did have a little trouble getting caught at one or two [buildings],” Quinn said. Quinn road-tested the operational assets as a prospective renter across Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane over a four-week period, scoring each building across a 76-question, nine-category framework. The result is a first-of-its-kind industry report that puts the asset class’s operational buildings under the microscope that Quinn says has yielded valuable insights. The benchmarking process scores each asset across digital and social, arrival and presentation, development quality, leasing consultant, the inspection, brand storytelling, inclusions and value-for-money, close and follow-up, and final thoughts. Street Score is being pitched as Australia's first independent benchmark for build-to-rent operations. IN DEPTH: Missed The Urban Developer Build-to-Rent Summit? Get valuable insights from the day with our on-demand content . The national median was 71.4 per cent, but the spread between individual buildings—87 per cent at the top, 36 per cent at the bottom—shows there is room for improvement. Blown cover The audit was designed to be invisible—neither leasing consultants nor building managers knew a scorecard was running. But that didn’t guarantee anonymity for Quinn. “I did have a little bit of trouble getting caught at one or two, but we got through the bulk of what I wanted to,” he said. In one instance, prior work Franklin St. had done, placing an operator into a building came back to bite on the exercise. “We helped work with [the landlord] to put the operator into that building. So when I went to do the tour, I did recognise some people and quickly got out,” Quinn said. A second project ended the same way. ▲ Franklin St. head of advisory Ed Quinn was spotted at WeAreLiving Brunswick and had to exclude the asset from the report. Two Melbourne and Brisbane projects were subsequently excluded from the review altogether after the mystery shopper was identified. Paradigm shift in market research The objective of the new research was to move beyond high-level research and analyse the “delta” in property management strategies, Quinn said. “Traditionally, the research in build-to-rent markets has been pipeline focused and capital … what this does is it takes us to that next step, which is how they’re actually being operated,” he said. “The purpose of this benchmark is to really focus on best practice and lifting ops up.” And while the data is anonymous, the best operator was an outlier with an overall score of 87 per cent. Quinn said that, while the building was not a standout holistically, consistency was a major factor in its overall score. “The best operator across the board just was very consistent throughout. You could tell that they’d put the time in to work through each part and make sure everything was quite structured,” he said. “The winning total score wasn’t actually the one that maybe got the best holistic feeling... but when it came to the quantitative, [they were] just very consistent across the board.” The analysis also identified some significant missed opportunities for operators. Critical blind spots Brand storytelling and value proposition were key areas where Quinn said more work needed to be done to help differentiate build-to-rent assets from build-to-sell assets. Inclusions and value-for-money averaged at just 45 per cent, the lowest of the nine categories, while brand storytelling averaged 64 per cent. “Brand storytelling, we found, was probably overlooked ... It was very rare to hear anyone mention who the brand was, who the operator was, what the difference is between build-to-rent and build-to-sell,” Quinn says. “It’s a real separator... we felt that that area could be done much better.” ▲ Brand storytelling and the communication of value for money within build-to-rent assets were areas that Quinn said could be improved upon. Another focus area was the value proposition and inclusions, which convey value for money and lead to stronger conversions, Quinn said. “Inclusions and value for money ... we just didn’t feel that a lot of that was offered up in the tour. It was almost expected that we knew,” he said. “That education [around the build-to-rent value proposition] sinks in a lot more when it’s in person than coming at you online.” But technology interfaces were also serving as a critical pathway for lead generation as the first touchpoint for prospective renters. Front-end technology is the primary vector for lead conversion and process optimisation. “You could see that [front-end tech] was quite a differentiator ... if you don’t get that right, they don’t get to the next stage,” Quinn said. “The tech is helping at the front end to get them in ... but the conversion part comes through a lot more once you get that value for money and brand storytelling right.” Quinn said leasing consultants scored the highest in the operational categories, and it was an area Quinn feels the industry has done really well. Future of Street Score Quinn conceded that the single-shopper, single-round model has a shelf life. “It was a good plan to do it once ... I won’t be doing it from here on,” he said. While it was a big undertaking and Quinn’s cover was blown on more than one occasion, he said it was good to compare buildings across the four-week period. “It really makes you analytically look at each operator and compare them while they’re all fresh,” he said. Franklin St. said future rounds would use dual assessors who would visit the same building independently within 24 hours of each other. Franklin St. is positioning Street Score as a recurring product ahead of a planned Best Operator awards event in 2027. For now, the numbers suggest build-to-rent’s physical product has outpaced its operational story—and that story is being told inconsistently, building by building, tour by tour. But there is room for improvement ahead of the next mystery shopper visit.

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