Renting is the New Owning

Home ownership is still (mostly) in vogue. According to a recent Pew Research Center survey, 81 percent of current home renters still plan to buy a house one day – though the number of individuals who “strongly agree” home ownership is the best investment a person can make is just 37% compared to 49% when the question was asked two decades ago in a CBS News/New York Times survey.

But outside of home ownership renting is the new owning and I suspect it will influence home ownership rates in the decades to come if the general acceptance of renting v. owning sticks. Individuals are even getting increasingly comfortable renting there own possessions to others.  Here’s a story on renting your own cars, and here you can rent your couch for the night. Here are just a few examples of the growing influence of renting:

Most are familiar with how zipcar has changed car ownership.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Longer-term bike rental is increasingly popular in major cities like Washington, DC.  For $75 a year you can grab a bike when and where you need one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RentTheRunway  – for the girl who has a full closet and yet still nothing to wear. You can rent designer clothes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Avelle lets you rent designer purses.  hwy pay $14K to own a new purse when you can “borrow” one for the month for jsut $1,500.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cengage is trying to bring textbook rental into the mainstay.  The secondary textbook market is so robust, it behaves today as a textbook rental market.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course, where the rental model is gaining the most traction these days is with content.  Sites like Netflix (movies), Vudu (movies), Amazon Istant Video (movies), iTunes (movies), Pandora (music), and Rdio (music) – just to name a few – are reviving the rental model for content which in turn is also reviving the subscription model.  Look for the subscription model to gain a stronger foothold in the months to come.