It has been a challenging time for the student accommodation sector since
late March. Despite this it has been positive to see the sector responding
in innovative way.
40% increase in enquiries
Here at Accommodation for Students, we have worked hard to continue to
deliver to our customers and partners, with consistent growth in the number
of students using the website and making enquiries through it. We have seen
an increase in the number of website users over the last few years and we
have maintained that pattern through the peak of the crisis. Following the
easing of lock down AFS has benefited from further growth, with 15% more
traffic this July than in 2019. This has been accompanied by a huge growth
in enquiries throughout 2020, with a huge 40% increase over 2019. It is
positive to note that this growth has been shared between landlords,
letting agents and PBSA’s who have all benefited.
Despite this steep growth we believe there is more to come, as the evidence
points to a busy period after A level results, with continued growth into
early 2021 as international students enter late into the cycle. This means
you can be confident that we can secure great tenants for your properties
over the next few months.
Further improvements
We have continued to invest in http://www.accommodationforstudents.com, building
on the work we have done over the last few years. We are currently updating
the landlord administration area to make it much easier for our landlords
to manage their property advertising requirements. A number of our
landlords have already migrated across to this new section of the website
and this process will continue over the next few weeks so that all of our
landlords can benefit from it. While there will be a number of new
features, we have also retained the core elements that our landlords value,
including an improved property boost function. In anticipation of a very
busy late summer we are close to releasing an enhancement to our enquiry
process which will enable students that are enquiring about a property to
share those property details with their potential housemates, which will
have a further positive impact on our ability to secure you great student
tenants.
Clearing 2020
Finally, in what has been a busy few months, we have launched a dedicated
student resource for clearing
https://www.accommodationforstudents.com/clearing-2020 this year. It
includes the key details on how Universities will be operating this year
and allows students that need some extra help in finding accommodation to
leave their details for our dedicated help team. This team is on hand over
the next few months to support students who are struggling to find
accommodation and is another way we are trying to assist both our students
and advertisers during this period. If you have any feedback or would like
to ask any questions please get in touch through
[email protected]
