Somewhere between the third conversation about your child’s student rent and the moment you work out you will be paying it for three or four years, a lot of parents have the same thought: would it be cheaper to just buy somewhere?
It is a fair question, and new Accommodation for Students research gives a reasonably clear picture of where the numbers stack up, and where they really do not. Here is what we found, along with the rather important small print that comes with it.
What the research actually looked at
We compared advertised student rents against what property genuinely sells for locally, across 22,107 student properties in 61 university cities in England and Wales, over the 12 months to June 2026. You can read the full Rental Yield Report if you like that sort of thing.
That gives every location a gross yield, which is simply the annual rent a property advertises for as a percentage of what it would cost to buy. Across the whole student market the average was 8.4%, but the gap between cities turned out to be enormous.
Where the numbers look strongest
- Middlesbrough came top at 24.3%. Student property there advertises for £24,326 a year against an average local value of £100,019.
- Hull was second at 12.8%, on £21,046 of rent against a £164,683 property value.
- Wolverhampton reached 11.9%, Plymouth 11.8% and Stoke-on-Trent 11.7%.
- Ten university markets in total produced average gross yields above 10%.
If your child is heading somewhere on that list, a three or four-bedroom house is usually the size that suits a student group. In Middlesbrough those averaged £19,033 of annual rent against a property value of £78,361.
Where the sums work far less well
In expensive areas the pattern reverses almost completely. Student property in London advertises for £36,166 a year, which is nearly £12,000 more than Middlesbrough. But set against an average property value of £697,910, that rent returns 5.2% rather than 24.3%.
Kingston came out lowest of all at 4.5%. The lesson is a fairly blunt one: a high rent does not make up for a high purchase price.
“Yield” is not the same as profit
This is the part worth reading twice.
A gross yield is rent divided by property value, and nothing else. It does not subtract a single one of the costs you would actually face. Not the mortgage, not stamp duty including the higher rate on an additional property, and not insurance, maintenance, letting agent fees, accountancy or income tax on the rent.
It also quietly assumes every room is full. Student lets have a summer, and a room your child’s housemates have moved out of earns nothing. The rents in the research are advertised rents too, rather than the figure a landlord finally settled on.
So a 24.3% gross yield is emphatically not a 24.3% return. It is a reasonable starting point for a conversation with a mortgage adviser and an accountant, and it is not a conclusion. Nothing here is financial advice.
If you are seriously considering it...
Buying a property your child shares with friends makes you a landlord, with all of the legal duties that come with the job.
- Letting rooms to your child’s housemates often needs a licence from the local council, and the rules vary from one area to the next.
- You will need gas safety checks, electrical inspections, smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, and the deposit protected in an approved scheme.
- The Renters’ Rights Act has changed how student tenancies work, so the rules are not what they were a couple of years ago.
- Property values can fall as well as rise, and selling a house takes considerably longer than ending a tenancy.
None of that makes it a bad idea. Plenty of families do exactly this and are very glad they did. It simply means it is a business decision as well as a parenting one, and the two do not always point the same way.
And if you decide against it...
That is an entirely sensible answer too.
Most parents do not buy, and your child will still have three brilliant years in a perfectly ordinary rented house. If that is you, our parent’s guide to the September move covers the things that genuinely do need sorting.
The research is genuinely useful if you were already wondering about buying. It is not, on its own, a reason to start.
