Apartment Buildings Are Replacing Unused Amenity Rooms With On-Demand Rental Kiosks

Written by:

Steve Marcinuk

Date:

25 Jun 2026

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The amenity arms race in multifamily housing has been well documented: rooftop lounges, golf simulators, co-working spaces. But a quieter change is also underway, one that has less to do with square footage and more to do with how residents actually live day to day. Companies like Tulu are betting that the next frontier in residential amenities is not a room in the building, but a service embedded within it.

Tulu operates an on-demand platform installed in residential buildings and student housing, giving residents access to everyday items, vacuum cleaners, projectors, scooters, printers, through a smart unit placed within the building. Rather than owning these items in a small apartment, residents can access them as needed. The platform now operates across more than 500 locations, serves half a million users, and works with some of the largest landlords in the world, including RXR, Brookfield, and Invesco.

The timing matters. As rent prices remain elevated and unit sizes shrink in many urban markets, residents are demanding more from their buildings than a standard gym and lounge package. At the same time, landlords face growing pressure to differentiate their properties and retain tenants in competitive markets where vacancy rates are rising.

Real Estate Technology

Co-founder and Chief Customer Officer Yael Shemer came to real estate through environmental science and a fellowship at MIT Design X, where she met co-founder Yishai Lehavi, an architect with a technology background. Combining her work in alternative consumption with his built-environment expertise, the two launched Tulu in 2019.

Their interdisciplinary foundation shapes how the company positions itself – not simply as a technology vendor, but as part of a broader rethinking of how urban residents relate to the things they use. “We really believe in building an ecosystem where we are combining retail, real estate, and trends,” Shemer says. “The mindset is already there for millennials and Gen Z. They know it doesn’t make sense to own all the things they own today.”

Landlords Are Coming

Six years in, Tulu has moved past the stage of cold outreach. Property managers now approach the company directly, sometimes with floor plans already designating space for a Tulu unit. “Many landlords are actually coming to us,” Shemer notes, “telling us they’ve been looking for an amenity like ours for a long time.”

The reasons are practical. Multifamily operators face real pressure to fill units, retain tenants, and stand out in competitive markets. Shemer describes a meaningful expansion of the stakeholder conversation inside property management companies, with dedicated roles now emerging around resident experience and community satisfaction. “I’m seeing a lot more roles in a building’s management that are dedicated to experience, satisfaction, and community,” she says.

The relationship with RXR illustrates how these partnerships deepen over time. After more than five years of working together, the two companies recently signed a broader agreement to install Tulu across multiple RXR properties as a standard amenity. Resident satisfaction scores drove the expansion; tenants consistently rated Tulu as one of their most-used amenities.

What Residents Actually Use

One of the more revealing findings from Tulu’s operation concerns the gap between what residents say they want and what they actually use, a distinction behavioral scientists call declared versus revealed preferences.

Shemer describes how the company initially expected specialty items like pasta makers and sewing machines to be popular, based on survey responses. In practice, residents gravitate toward cleaning appliances, printers, and scooters. The same dynamic plays out at the building level. Amenities that generated excitement during the design phase – meditation rooms, yoga studios, podcast booths – sometimes sit empty after opening.

“You really can’t know what is part of the selling point versus what’s actually going to be utilized,” Shemer says. This gap has led some landlords to build more flexibility into their amenity planning, leaving room to reconfigure spaces based on how residents actually behave after move-in.

The implication is worth noting: the buildings that retain tenants most effectively may not be those with the most impressive feature list, but those that pay closer attention to how people actually spend their time.

Gen Z Renters

The generational preference for renting over owning is not new, but Shemer points to a change in how it registers on the ground. When Tulu first launched, residents encountering the platform reacted with surprise. Now, particularly among student housing residents, the response is immediate recognition.

“Five years ago it felt very innovative. Now it’s like, ‘Of course this exists. Of course I can rent my PlayStation,'” she says.

This cohort grew up with Uber, Airbnb, and streaming services. Paying for access rather than ownership is not a compromise – it is simply how they have always interacted with goods and services. Tulu’s model aligns with that expectation while addressing two concerns that resonate strongly with this demographic: affordability and sustainability. According to Shemer, over 50% of Gen Z renters prefer to rent items rather than buy them, and residents paying high rents increasingly expect their buildings to deliver more value in return.

Where Deals Get Stuck

Tulu’s sales process is not without friction. Budget cycles, construction timelines, and navigating the right stakeholders inside large property management organizations all create delays.

“You want to talk to the people that know the residents the best, but you also want to talk to people that can make decisions via budget,” Shemer says. The company has learned to pre-qualify leads based on market fit, building type, unit size, resident demographics, and to read when a potential partner is genuinely ready versus when timing is not right.

Deals that stall for logistical reasons tend to resurface once construction wraps or budgets reset. The more telling indicator of market health is that organic demand continues to grow. “A service like Tulu is becoming more and more like a standard,” Shemer says.

What Comes Next

Looking ahead through the rest of 2026, Tulu is in an active growth phase. The company is adding hundreds of new buildings and locations, expanding partnerships across North America and the UK, and seeing particularly strong momentum in Canada.

For multifamily operators trying to decide where to invest in resident experience, Tulu’s trajectory offers one data point worth watching. The amenities that hold their value may turn out to be the ones that adapt to how residents live, not the ones that look best on a leasing brochure. As unit sizes shrink and resident expectations rise, the distinction between impressive and useful will likely determine which buildings retain tenants and which keep searching for them.

About the Expert: Yael Shemer is co-founder and Chief Customer Officer of Tulu, an on-demand amenity platform operating across more than 500 residential and student housing locations serving half a million users. She co-founded the company in 2019 following a fellowship at MIT Design X.

This article is based on information provided by the expert source cited above. It is intended for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, financial, or real estate advice. Readers should conduct their own research and consult qualified professionals before making any real estate or financial decisions.