Resident Retention Research and Implementation Strategy - ON-1160

Project type: Research
Desired discipline(s): Business, Social Sciences & Humanities, Psychology
Company: Openroom Inc.
Project Length: 4 to 6 months
Preferred start date: 05/01/2026
Language requirement: English
Location(s): Vaughn, ON, Canada
No. of positions: 1
Desired education level: CollegeUndergraduate/BachelorMaster'sPhDPostdoctoral fellowRecent graduate
Open to applicants registered at an institution outside of Canada: No

About the company: 

Openroom.ca was founded in 2022 as a small passion project inspired by a personal tenancy dispute. What began as an experiment quickly grew into a community of engaged renters and landlords who shared their experiences, challenges, and questions about Canada’s rental ecosystem. This early feedback helped us recognize how fragmented and opaque the rental landscape can be, and how much value there is in creating greater transparency and accountability.
Openroom’s mission is to build a connected rental ecosystem where responsible behaviour is recognized and incentivized. We believe landlords are business owners who provide an essential service, and tenants are customers who deserve safe, well-maintained housing and clear information about their rights and obligations. Both parties contribute to the health of the rental system, and both benefit when expectations are clear and fair.
Through our platform, we aggregate tenancy court orders, surface meaningful insights, and offer tools that help people protect themselves, resolve disputes, and build a positive rental history. As we continue to learn from our community, our goal is to reduce friction, save time and money, and empower millions of Canadians to participate in rental housing with confidence.

Describe the project.: 

Openroom Inc. is developing a resident retention program to help rental housing providers understand and improve the long-term satisfaction of tenants. As rental market dynamics shift, driven by increased cost consciousness, the long-term renting patterns of Millennials and Gen Z, and for the first time, rental listings surpassing home sales on MLS, housing operators need clearer insight into what motivates tenants to stay or leave. Despite its importance, the drivers of resident retention in Canada remain under-researched and poorly measured.
This innovation project will develop a data-driven model for resident retention by conducting a structured research study with Openroom’s community of over 5,000 renters. The project seeks to identify the key factors that meaningfully influence whether a tenant chooses to renew: amenities, on-site engagement programs, sense of community, property management quality, building condition, or the rental unit itself. Understanding these drivers will allow housing providers to design interventions that improve tenant experience without creating situations that result in renters staying past the point where they can achieve fair market rent alignment.
The intern will lead a mixed-methods research process. Core tasks include: survey design tailored to diverse renter demographics, qualitative interviews to capture deeper motivations and lived experience, data cleaning and synthesis, and analysis using statistical and thematic methods. The student will also map emerging macro-trends in the rental housing landscape, affordability pressures, shifting generational expectations, and post-pandemic behavioural changes, and integrate these findings with the primary data.
Methodologies include online survey tools, feedback collection, comparative analysis across building types, and segmentation modeling. The outcome will be a retention framework and a set of evidence-based recommendations that property managers and Openroom can operationalize. This project will directly contribute to improving tenant well-being, strengthening housing stability, and increasing the overall health of Canada’s rental ecosystem.

Required expertise/skills: 

● Academic background in social sciences, business, economics, psychology, urban studies, or a related field
● Experience designing and administering surveys, including creating clear and unbiased questions
● Ability to conduct qualitative interviews and perform basic thematic analysis
● Strong analytical and critical-thinking skills, including the ability to interpret trends and identify patterns in data
● Proficiency with common productivity and analysis tools such as Excel or Google Sheets
Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to present findings clearly
● Organized, self-directed, and able to manage a research process with guidance
Interest in housing, rental markets, community engagement, or customer experience research is an asset