A huge rise in overseas students heading to the UK for their studies is pushing up demand for private student accommodation, one market report reveals.
According to Zoopla, this jump in numbers means that private student landlords are having to meet this growing need because there isn't enough capacity in the purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) sector.
The platform says there were 680,000 overseas students in the UK in 2021/22 - that's up by 122,000 in just two years because of new visa rules.
Zoopla says this group is a 'lucrative market' for universities and they are part of the government's plan to attract talent to the UK.
All university towns have large amounts of PBSA available
The report highlights that all university towns have large amounts of PBSA available but the leap in student numbers has led to a supply/demand imbalance.
The imbalance means that demand has spilled over into the wider Private Rented Sector (PRS) and will boost rental demand in the summer months.
It is this growing demand for private student accommodation that helps explain why rental inflation has remained strong across many big UK cities.
Zoopla also says that the UK's strong jobs market is also boosting housing demand and is pushing rents up.
Overall rental demand has increased
Zoopla points out that overall rental demand has increased but the number of privately rented homes has remained static.
It says that in 2021, there were 5.5m private rented homes in Great Britain - slightly more than the 5.4m total in 2016.
Richard Donnell, the firm's executive director of research, said: "In simple terms, a static supply of rented housing means new investment that adds to supply is offset by property leaving the sector, as landlords dispose of rented homes as part of ongoing portfolio rationalisation or exit the rental market altogether."
Simon Thompson, the managing director of Accommodation for Students, said: "There's no doubt that demand has increased, as we saw last autumn when students around the country queued overnight to get a student property.
"But student landlords are also leaving in the face of higher costs and the prospect of periodic tenancies being brought in - the government must act to help landlords with student accommodation remain in the sector."
University to rent hundreds of private landlord beds
It’s not just in the UK where students are struggling to find somewhere to live – there’s also a drastic shortage of student accommodation available in Ireland . And now one university has had to rent hundreds of beds from landlords in the private sector. That’s the situation at University College Dublin which will provide landlords with a booking and support service. The extra beds will be available from September in a bid to beat the student housing shortage. The University of Galway has also revealed that it is to rent apartments from private landlords and then sublet them to students.
The latest developments in student accommodation
In an article about the latest developments in student accommodation, Martin Blakey of Unipol has written an interesting item for the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi). In it, he highlights that student numbers coming from the EU have slumped but have rocketed from elsewhere. Also, applications from Chinese students to study at UK universities is slowing, while the numbers from Nigeria and India are up. There has also been a rise in the number of international students coming to the UK with dependents. The article also notes that students from India and Nigeria tend to want cheaper student accommodation for their studies.
Students forcibly removed from building
Students who have been staging a rent strike since February have been forcibly removed from a University of Manchester campus building. The students were protesting over rents and living conditions in accommodation owned by the university and had taken over three buildings before vacating them and staging a sit-in in another one. They were asking for a 30% reduction in rent, back dated to October and a rent cap to be imposed for the next three years. However, university bosses issued court papers and then began to remove occupiers from their building because, the university says, the students’ action was causing disruption to other students and was illegal. After being told to leave the building and refusing, bailiffs then forcibly removed them. The university said it was a matter of regret they had to carry out the legal action.
