Student experience of finding student accommodation

AFS Team·8 March 2023·3 min read
Student experience of finding student accommodation

In our February webinar, the AFS team discussed the experiences students had securing their current student accommodation and their anticipations for the coming year.

Resilient students

Rhiannon Clark presented AFS’s most recent primary research on this topic. The data confirms the existence of the well-known Autumn cycle in which students search for accommodation, but also demonstrates a Spring/Summer cycle present for postgraduate and first year students. The data demonstrates that generally students are resilient towards the current challenges in the student housing market. Hotspots of particular difficulty in securing accommodation were highlighted, alongside much ‘easier’ cities. A breakdown of the challenges students are currently facing was summarised.

Expectations in 2023

The research’s findings on students’ anticipations for their accommodation next year were then discussed. This included students’ rent expectations, time they plan to search for accommodation, anticipated accommodation type, the cities in which students are anticipating the most difficulty, and what these difficulties are expected to be.

Nick Emms concluded this segment. He emphasised that students are taking the challenges in their stride, they have a relaxed mindset, the polarisation in the market between cities and thus the need to consider each city individually and advise students accordingly.

Student panel

Our student panel, Anna, Ellie, Dionysia and Eleanor shared their experiences searching for accommodation. They discussed how the media affected when they began searching for accommodation, what they would do differently going forward, their preferences with bills-inclusive and anything they would like to see done differently in the student housing market.

The slides can be accessed here , and the full recording of the can be found here.