Incorporation of Alternative income Streams Into the Lessor’s Business Model and it’s Effects on a Building Asset Value : A Case Study on Stockholm’s Private Rental Sector

Sammanfattning: Digital platforms and tools have already taken over a large part of human daily lives and with the latest pandemic of COVID-19 it is clear how these technological trends have just increased, in both intensity and complexity, across most of the different aspects that comprehend our everyday activities. For instance, people are staying more at home and people now socialize, consume and work with help of different digital tools, which in other words means that the homes’ original role is changing to a more multifaceted and integral function. Based on such reality, this master thesis aims to investigate how property owners of housing rentals in Stockholm could extract value from these mentioned trends and context by incorporating new alternative income streams in their current business models. Moreover, this academic inquiry also intends to investigate the financial effect that these streams incorporation could have on a property valuation in the housing rental sector of Stockholm.  This thesis project follows two different, yet subsequential, lines of research, where the first one is an interview with local industry experts that provided insights in which kind of potential new value streams that property owners could incorporate in their current business models. They also shared information regarding which kind of digital tools are needed nowadays to make the new offering to the tenants in the most effective way within the Stockholm Private Rental Sector context. The industry experts also gave estimations of the cash flows enhancements that these service incorporation could bring to the owner . This information created the foundation that was used to later interview property owners. The property owners gave information of which kind of digital tools they used today, and what their view was about incorporating the new services and contracts that the industry experts had pointed out as possible new income streams. Both sets of interviews were analyzed with help of finding themes and reviewed literature that allowed the authors of this project to move on to evaluate the financial effect on a housing rental property in Stockholm whenever the new cash flows of the filtered income streams were considered.  The thesis has reached the conclusion that an incorporation of provision of services can create value for both the tenant and the property owner, even though specific services that should be incorporated aren't pointed out. The market was, at the time this thesis was written, immature and fast moving, which makes it hard to say which services will be successful in the Swedish market. Despite this are the results pointing out that contracts as home-electricity and insurances are among the services that have the lowest barrier to implement, and have already been tried by some actors in the industry. For those actors that have started an incorporation of provision of services have already noticed new cash-flows streams, even if they today are minor. The second conclusion is that those cash-flows will in the future trigger higher property values as properties will be a more attractive asset to possess. To be able to identify the demand and extract value from it in a successful way is a user-centered approach a key aspect, as the transaction must create new value for all actors involved