How the Ukrainian rental market went from "Avizo" to build-to-rent
Just a few decades ago, renting an apartment in Ukraine meant one thing: you hadn't yet saved up for your own. Today this logic is gradually changing. Over the past three decades, the market has traveled from newspaper ads and informal agreements to digital platforms and full-fledged housing ecosystems, and so views on home ownership and renting have also changed.
We explain how our attitude toward real estate has changed, why the new generation chooses flexibility, and how the build-to-rent format is changing the rules of the game.
How Ukrainians' attitude toward home ownership has changed
One's own
at any cost
To understand why owning an apartment remained for so long the main life asset for people, it is worth starting not with the real estate market, but with the Soviet experience of daily life. For many families, a separate apartment was a cherished dream. They stood in lines for it for years, and communal living meant shared kitchens, bathrooms, and constant compromises with neighbors. One's own space was perceived not as ordinary real estate, but as privacy, autonomy, and the opportunity to live by one's own rules.
After the collapse of the USSR, this dream quickly turned into an economic reality. On June 19, 1992, Ukraine passed a law on the privatization of the state housing fund, and already in August the first purchase and sale agreements for privatized apartments began to be concluded. This is how the Ukrainian residential real estate market was born.
The scale of privatization was impressive: in 1993–1994, Ukrainians privatized more than 1.8 million apartments, and by 2018, only 0.5% of apartments and single-family houses remained in state ownership. For many, an apartment became property for the first time that could be sold, exchanged, or inherited.
Housing in Kyiv at that time was sought through paper advertisements, acquaintances, spontaneous notice boards, and the first private brokers (that is what intermediaries or realtors who brought together a buyer and a seller or a landlord and a tenant were called in the 1990s). One of the main tools was the newspaper "Avizo." Fresh advertisements for the sale and rental of apartments were sorted through in paper issues, after which people called the owner and arranged a viewing.
Since the market rules in the 90s were just being formed, a simple housing logic matured: if there is an opportunity, one must have one's own. Owning an apartment meant not so much status or investment as protection from the uncertainty of someone else's housing. Renting was perceived as a temporary compromise — a decision "until we save up for our own." This mindset determined Ukrainians' attitude toward real estate for the following decades.
apartments and single-family houses remained in state ownership until 2018
Finding is now easier, living — no
In the 2000s, the Ukrainian real estate market experienced the most rapid development in its modern history. The country was gripped by a genuine construction and buying boom: new residential complexes were built at record pace, and demand for one's own square meters reached its peak. However, in parallel with the buy-and-sell market, the rules for finding rental housing were also changing.
Announcements gradually moved from newspapers and bulletin boards to the internet, and the market itself became more open. It was already possible to look for an apartment from home, although this still did not make renting comfortable or predictable.
An important stage was Slando's entry into the Ukrainian market in 2007. Housing search transformed from a local process ("through acquaintances, via ads on poles or through a broker") into an online service with a large number of offers.
During the 2008 crisis, it became clear that although the rental market was already formed, it had so far remained reactive: people turned to it when buying housing became unaffordable or risky.
Then banks curtailed long-term lending, mortgages became unavailable, and the purchase-and-sale market sharply decelerated. The rental market, however, suffered a major blow: in the autumn of 2008, the volume of rental listings in Kyiv more than doubled, which intensified competition and forced landlords to lower prices. By the end of 2009, the average cost of renting one- to three-room apartments in Kyiv had fallen by 27.8% in dollar terms — to $438 per month.
Reactivity was also confirmed by 2014, when housing increasingly began to become a matter of mobility: people moved because of war, work, study, or a change of city. According to Cedos, from the beginning of the conflict in eastern Ukraine in 2014 to the beginning of November 2015, more than 1.5 million people left the ATO area. For hundreds of thousands of people, renting became a way to quickly restore their daily life in a new city.
All this time, the problem was the rental paradox: the market had already digitalized, but the
If your job changes and you need to relocate — how can you do it without another domestic quest?
If stable internet is needed for work — whose responsibility is it?
And must renting necessarily mean a compromise between mobility and comfort?
Thus began the next stage: people sought to pay not only for square meters, but also for predictability, service, and freedom from household routine.
How renting became a service
In the 2020s, people's expectations of housing changed. The pandemic normalized remote work, the full-scale
For a remote worker, an apartment is simultaneously a home, an office, a place for rest and leisure. High-quality renovations alone can no longer meet all the needs: stable internet, backup power, shelter, nearby infrastructure, and the ability not to solve every household problem independently become important.
The approach to the renter themselves has also changed. According to a Cedos study, approximately 18% of renters encountered bias while searching for housing. Among them, 48% associated it with having children, 35% with pets, and another 35% with their place of official registration. A separate study on student renting mentions bias based on age, gender, marital status, region of origin, appearance, and nationality.
In the traditional model, a person first had to "appeal" to the owner, and only then became a resident. Overall, Cedos described the private rental sector as unprotected and unpredictable: among the problems noted were sudden changes in cost, reluctance to conclude contracts, low housing quality, sudden evictions, and discrimination.
So when we talk about the demand for housing as a service, it is not only about coworking,
What the modern generation wants from housing
49% of renters note that today long-term rent is perceived as more acceptable than it was ten years ago. Among its advantages, respondents cite the freedom to move or change plans (38%) and the absence of hassle with maintaining one's own housing (37%). For Gen Z, flexibility is even more critical: 47% consider flexible contract terms one of the main advantages of long-term rent.
tenants consider long-term rent more acceptable than ten years ago
Representatives of Gen Z call flexible contract terms one of the main advantages
This trend is driven not only by a change in young people's values but also by a purely pragmatic reason: home ownership remains unaffordable for a significant portion of citizens.
In many European countries, the idea of long-term renting is much more familiar. In 2024, 53% of Germany's population lived in rented housing, and in Austria — 46%. For comparison, the average figure in the EU was 32%. So renting there is not an intermediate stage, but a mass choice.
In response to international trends, build-to-rent (BTR) emerged — housing that is designed from the outset for long-term rental under centralized professional management. Globally, this format has developed over the past 10–15 years into a separate segment of investment real estate, while in Ukraine it is only beginning to develop.
Unlike a classic apartment owned by a private owner, build-to-rent offers a single system: the building, infrastructure, living rules, and an operator responsible for service. In many such buildings, digital innovations are combined with amenities for any life scenario. For residents, lounge areas, terraces, fitness rooms, walking paths, pools, dog paw-washing rooms, and shared spaces for events are arranged: yoga classes, movie nights, or parties. In addition, energy-efficient and environmental solutions are built into projects from the outset.
In addition, build-to-rent does not oppose renting to ownership. On the contrary, it simply separates two needs: the resident gets quality housing without having to buy it, and the investor gets real estate ownership without having to manage it themselves.
The model has found its buyer. The scale of this market is measured in billions of dollars: the European build-to-rent segment was valued at approximately $7 billion in 2025, and by 2031 it could grow to $10.48 billion with an average annual growth rate of 6.98%.
First
build-to-rent
in Ukraine
The first company in Ukraine to start developing this format was Standard One, which is building a network of profitable buildings. Unlike classic developers, the team creates and manages residential complexes as a single ecosystem, where a resident receives a ready-made service, infrastructure, and autonomy instead of just apartments.
The concept evolves with each new property: while the network's first projects — S1 VDNG and S1 Obolon — established the standards of service and basic infrastructure, S1 Pozniaky has become the third profitable building in the network and effectively represents a new generation of BTR formats.
The morning at S1 Pozniaky can be started with a walk or jog by Lake Sribnyi Kil, which is located next to the building. There is no need to drive to another district for coffee or shopping: on the ground floors of the complex, the S1 Plaza shopping center with an area of about 7,000 m² will operate, featuring a supermarket, coffee shops, restaurants, stores, and household services. It is approximately a two-minute walk to the Pozniaky metro station.
Ultimately, this is not about renting having finally triumphed over the desire to own one's own square meters, but about the maturing of the market, where the renter no longer wants to feel like a defenseless guest, but expects clear rules, quality service, and a predictable living experience.
This can be ensured by professional building management according to unified standards. And the quality of such management is important not only for the resident: the better the product and service the tenant receives, the more attractive the real estate becomes as an investment asset.
What the
investor receives
For a real estate investor, the build-to-rent model from Standard One means simpler participation in asset management. An income-generating building is created from the outset for subsequent rental, and day-to-day operational work can be transferred to a professional operator. In the developer's projects, this function is performed by S1 Property, a company specializing in income real estate management that handles move-ins, payments, communication with tenants, and household matters. The owner retains ownership of the property and receives rental income without dealing with day-to-day operations.
In this model, the interests of the resident and the investor are interconnected. Quality service, infrastructure, and professional management create an attractive product for the tenant, and for the owner — a profitable asset.
At the same time, buying an apartment or apartments is not the only way to invest in the real estate of the Standard One ecosystem. A separate direction is being developed by the investment company S1 REIT, which creates funds for investments in residential and commercial real estate. For example, the S1 Plaza Pozniaky and S1 Pozniaky funds make it possible to invest from 1,000 hryvnias with a planned yield of 9% per annum in dollars.
Also, an option to exchange certificates for apartments has recently appeared — to do this, it is enough to accumulate an investment amount equivalent to 20% and reserve an apartment for yourself, fixing the price. You can continue accumulating at your own pace, contributing amounts convenient for you, and meanwhile the accumulated investments will grow thanks to the fund's yield.