Over the last five years www.accommodatoinforstudents.com have worked closely with Glide, a company that specialise in shared bills for students.
During this period, the proportion of properties advertised on AFS with some or all of their bills included has increased from 30% to 59%. In certain regions and areas of the country the proportion can be considerably higher than this and we anticipate that this will continue to increase.
The trend is primarily driven by students, who consider having bills included an essential aspect of student accommodation, mainly because they believe having bills included makes their life easier and saves them money.
Indeed our student research indicates that where utilities are not included in the rent it can sometimes be the source of arguments and friction among housemates. Furthermore, in such circumstances almost one in ten students have experienced been left to pay a bill because a housemate has not.
The landlord perspective
In 2017, 56% of the landlords and agents who advertised on AFS offered at least some bills included on the properties they advertised through AFS. Of these 35% offered bills inclusive for all of their portfolio. The most common utilities to include are electricity, gas, water and internet, while 28% of landlords offering bills inclusive rents included all utilities. On average AFS landlords and agents charge £9 per week more where they include bills (up from £7.50 more five years ago).
While this trend has been driven by students who are increasingly seeing this convenience as a standard requirement for their student accommodation, it has been very much facilitated by Glide. Glide’s easy to use website https://glide.co.uk/ enables students to sign up to their services easily.
In addition Glide provide a slick service to help you manage your utilities across your portfolio if you want to offer your student tenants this service. Glide are able to provide one bill for your properties and even enable you to limit broadband usage if your tenant misses a rent payment. If this feels like a step too far, you are able to introduce your students to Glide and this can earn you some money as well as still offering some of the benefits that students are looking for visit this page for more information https://glide.co.uk/landlords
