This article will guide you on how to create a tenants survey about rent affordability. With Specific, you can build a high-quality, conversational survey in seconds—get started and generate your survey instantly.
Steps to create a survey for tenants about rent affordability
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Tell what survey you want.
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You honestly don’t need to read further. AI handles the expert survey structure for you. It even asks smart followup questions to collect in-depth insights, so you end up with richer data and less hassle. Curious? Try the AI survey generator for any kind of survey.
Why running a tenants survey about rent affordability matters
Ignoring feedback from tenants is a missed opportunity. Rent affordability is a real pain point—recent data shows the average household renting privately in England spent 36.3% of its gross income on housing in 2024, up from 33.1% the previous year. In Ireland, the numbers are similar: 36% of net income goes to rent, with 12% spending over half their take-home pay on housing costs. [1][2]
If you’re not surveying tenants, you’re missing out on what truly drives satisfaction and decisions to renew or leave.
Surveys help you uncover pain points—high rents, unexpected fees, or maintenance issues—before they become reasons for churn.
Conducting tenant feedback surveys isn’t just a nice-to-have. Properties using them have seen a 5% increase in lease renewals, directly boosting retention and reducing costly turnover. [3]
Even small insights—like which amenities actually matter—can guide smarter investments and strengthen landlord-tenant relationships.
The importance of a tenants recognition survey can’t be overstated. The real benefits of tenants feedback are actionable: you get clarity, trust, retention, and ultimately, more value from every rental relationship.
What makes a good survey on rent affordability
Not all surveys are created equal. Strong rent affordability surveys use clear, unbiased questions and a conversational tone that invites honest, meaningful answers. You want tenants to feel comfortable sharing whatever’s on their mind—without ambiguity.
It pays to avoid jargon or loaded questions. Keep it natural, especially around touchy topics like rent, housing stress, or budgeting. The best surveys measure success by the quality and quantity of responses: lots of genuine, informative replies (not just “fine” or “n/a”).
Bad practices | Good practices |
|---|---|
Leading questions (“Why do you find our rent cheap?”) | Neutral questions (“How would you rate the affordability of your rent?”) |
Long, complex language | Plain, clear words (“How much of your income goes to rent?”) |
No chance for followup or clarification | Followup prompts for deeper insights |
To maximize response rates, keep your survey around 10–15 questions—concise but comprehensive. [4] Also, don’t hesitate to offer a small thank-you like a gift card or rent discount to encourage participation. [5]
Question types and examples for tenants survey about rent affordability
There’s no single right way to ask, but mixing question types will get you the best feedback. If you want to deep-dive, we’ve written a whole guide on the best questions for tenants surveys about rent affordability, including advanced tips.
Open-ended questions are perfect for when you want tenants to go beyond a yes/no or a simple rating. These questions uncover the underlying “why” or surface unexpected perspectives.
What challenges do you face when budgeting for your rent each month?
If your rent increased, how would that affect your decision to stay in your current home?
Single-select multiple-choice questions are ideal for gathering structured data and comparing responses. Use them when you need consistent metrics but still want to keep it simple.
Roughly what percentage of your monthly income goes toward rent?
Less than 20%
20–30%
31–40%
More than 40%
NPS (Net Promoter Score) question surveys are great for quantifying overall satisfaction with housing affordability. Want to create one quickly? Generate your NPS survey for tenants here.
On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend your current rental property to a friend, based on its affordability?
Followup questions to uncover "the why": Always consider followups to clarify or dig deeper, especially if an answer is vague or signals frustration. These help you get actionable insights of why tenants feel how they do.
What do you mean by “somewhat unaffordable”?
Can you share an example of a recent month that was especially difficult?
Using this mix—and adding smart conversational followups when someone’s answer needs more context—means you’ll gather both breadth and depth in your feedback. For more details and advanced examples, check out our full survey questions guide for rent affordability surveys.
What is a conversational survey?
A conversational survey is a feedback method where the survey feels like a real, back-and-forth chat—not just a cold form. Specific’s platform makes these surveys feel natural, friendly, and surprisingly effective at getting honest responses.
Traditional survey tools give you a static list of questions, often with low engagement, incomplete answers, or boring formats. With an AI survey generator, everything changes: you describe the survey you need and the AI instantly drafts expertly structured, empathic, context-aware questions. Followups are automatic, and analysis is built in.
Manual surveys | AI-generated surveys |
|---|---|
Static forms, rigid structure | Conversational, adapts to answers |
No or manual followups | Automated probing questions |
Low completion rate | High engagement, feels like a real chat |
Slow setup | Build in seconds |
Why use AI for tenants surveys? It’s simple: the AI takes the mental load out of survey creation, guaranteeing expert-made questions, real-time tailored followups, and deeply engaging conversations. Curious how it works? Check our guide to create surveys with Specific for a detailed walkthrough.
We’ve refined the art of conversational surveys at Specific. Whether you need a mobile-friendly landing page survey or an in-product chat, the user experience is designed to maximize feedback quality while keeping things seamless for both creators and respondents. If you want to build and analyze AI survey examples or explore more use cases, dive into our survey generator and survey examples.
The power of follow-up questions
Asking follow-up questions transforms a survey from a static Q&A to a living, evolving conversation. Automated probing—like what Specific’s AI followup questions feature provides—can completely change your insight depth. Instead of chasing tenants for clarification by email, the survey itself asks for details, in real time, just like an expert conversational interviewer.
Tenant: “Rent is a bit high.”
AI follow-up: “Can you tell me what makes you feel it’s high? Are there particular months or bills that stretch your budget?”
How many followups to ask? In most cases, 2–3 focused followup questions are enough to get clarity and context. And if you’ve gathered all you need, you can set Specific to skip further probing and keep things smooth—so tenants don’t get survey fatigue.
This makes it a conversational survey: the interaction flows naturally, making responding almost effortless, even on sensitive topics.
AI survey response analysis: Even if you collect hundreds of nuanced, open-ended answers, it’s easy to analyze everything with AI. Explore our guide on analyzing survey responses using AI—the system will distill main themes and spot patterns in minutes.
Automated followups haven’t been possible until recently—try generating a survey on rent affordability and see how natural the experience feels both for creators and your tenants. You’ll wonder how you ever managed with forms and endless emails.
See this rent affordability survey example now
Experience how easy it is to get actionable, honest feedback about rent affordability—see a conversational survey in action and start collecting better insights in minutes.