Amenity-as-a-Service: The New Definition of a Multifamily Amenity

What is an amenity-as-a-service? Amenity-as-a-service provides residents, tenants, or guests on-demand access to household goods, mobility, printing, retail, and services without owning, storing, or maintaining them. Rather than a building only offering fixed amenity spaces, like a fitness center or a rooftop deck, amenity-as-a-service treats the building itself as a platform: a rotating, on-demand layer of products and services that residents tap into exactly when they need them. 

TULU is built around this model, serving as a real-world example of what access over ownership looks like in practice and representing a broader shift in how the real estate industry defines an amenity.

The Term, Defined

For most of multifamily history, an amenity was a fixed asset—a pool, a gym, a rooftop deck. You built it once, and residents used it (or didn't) for as long as they lived there. Amenity-as-a-service flips that model. Instead of a static space, it's a managed, evolving collection of products and services that residents access through an app without owning the underlying items.

While the term may be new, the model isn't. It's the residential application of the same "as-a-service" approach that transformed software (SaaS), transportation, and retail—often referred to as XaaS, or "anything as a service", where products and solutions are delivered on an ongoing basis rather than sold as one-time purchases.

Applied to multifamily, that means residents access a vacuum, projector, or e-scooter through their building instead of buying one themselves.

The Trend

This ownership-to-access shift is also recognized in economics as the access economy, where customers gain temporary access to goods and services rather than owning them outright. Researchers have studied this trend for more than a decade, finding that consumers increasingly value access over the cost and responsibility of ownership.

That naturally raises the question: isn't this just the sharing economy? Not quite. The sharing economy relies on peer-to-peer exchange, while amenity-as-a-service is a professionally managed model that gives people on-demand access to shared products and services, with maintenance, restocking, and support handled by the provider.

It's also fundamentally different from a traditional amenity. Instead of a fixed asset like a gym, amenity-as-a-service is a dynamic, managed offering that evolves based on how people actually live and what they use. TULU brings that model to life inside the building.

Why It's Showing Up in Real Estate Right Now

Amenity-as-a-service is still an emerging term in multifamily real estate specifically, but it's gaining traction fast, and for a clear reason. Industry observers increasingly point to it as a coming force in multifamily and mixed-use development, describing a future where third-party providers deliver specialized offerings directly into buildings rather than operators building and maintaining everything in-house. 

The demand side backs this up. According to 2026 renter research, data has consistently shown that day-to-day convenience and consistent quality of life drive satisfaction and lease renewal more reliably than one-time showpiece amenities like rooftop pools or golf simulators.

That's the core logic behind amenity-as-a-service: it's not about adding more square footage or flashier common areas but about making the daily friction points of living, needing a drill for an hour, wanting a scooter for a quick errand, forgetting to buy toothpaste, disappear.

What This Looks Like in Practice

TULU is a working example of the model, and a useful one because it covers the range of what amenity-as-a-service can mean rather than just one slice of it. 

The platform's five offerings, Rent, Shop, Ride, Print, and Services, are built around the needs that recur most reliably across a resident's week. TULU Rent puts tools, tech accessories, and portable equipment a tap away through an app. TULU Shop covers the small errand that would otherwise eat someone's afternoon, all without the resident ever having to buy or store the item themselves.

Amenity-as-a-service isn't about creating the most impressive amenity space. It's about making everyday life easier by ensuring the small, recurring needs of daily living can be handled on-site, without planning ahead or leaving the building.

The Takeaway

Amenity-as-a-service isn't a rebrand of the amenity room. It's a fundamentally different premise: that the things people need on a daily basis should be accessible, not owned, and that a building can deliver that access directly rather than leaving residents to source it themselves. 

As the access economy continues to reshape consumer expectations across every category, from clothing to transportation, real estate is catching up, and the properties adopting platforms like TULU are the ones already living in that shift rather than waiting to catch up to it.

Sources: 

1. Flinders, Mesh, and Ian Smalley. "What Is XaaS (Anything as a Service)?" IBM, www.ibm.com/think/topics/xaas. July 2026. 

2. "Access Economy." Encyclopedia MDPI, 4 Nov. 2022, www.encyclopedia.pub/entry/32792 

3. Coldwell Banker Commercial. "The Amenity Arms Race: How Multifamily and Mixed-Use Developers Are Redefining Community Value." Coldwell Banker Commercial, 5 Nov. 2025, www.cbcworldwide.com/blog/the-amenity-arms-race-how-multifamily-and-mixed-use-developers-are-redefining-community-value.