Over the last few years, there has been a shift towards purpose built-student accommodation (PBSA), driven mainly by developers and encouraged by universities. From a developer’s perspective, it is more profitable to build high rise student accommodation and universities generally prefer halls as they can guarantee a higher availability of accommodation to prospective students.
PBSA is attractive with foreign students as they often do not know anyone in their first year to share a house with. PBSA is also popular with first-year students as it provides the opportunity to engage with a wide variety of new people. There is no denying that newly built modern PBSA offers fresh new accommodation with many facilities, however, PBSA offers a very different university life experience. Living in a private property that accommodates 4-6 students provides a more traditional experience and is invaluable in providing life lessons such as learning to share a house with other people, managing bills, interacting with the landlord etc. These are all excellent lessons for post-university life.
Game Changers
The two main game changers for halting this trend towards PBSA are the unfortunate Grenfell incident and COVID-19.
Numerous PBSA towers have been identified to be wrapped in combustible Grenfell-style cladding. Although remediation work has started the progress has been slow and many student residential towers remain clad in composite material similar to that which helped spread the fire at Grenfell Tower. Since many of the PBSA is privately owned remediation work is hampered by disagreements between the developers and owners as to who should bear the remediation costs.
Coronavirus has highlighted another risk with PBSA, whereby entire buildings have had to quarantine with police turning up to ensure students adhered to the rules. Students in traditional private accommodation have not suffered the same fate and even if they had to quarantine this would be limited to the single house. Furthermore, it is easier to create a small bubble of 4 or 6 students sharing a single house as opposed to 100’s sharing PBSA. The risk of infection is PBSA is significantly higher and it is more difficult to social distance. Movement in and out of the tower buildings is also severely impacted as access is typically by small lifts which now have to comply with social distancing rules, meaning having to use the stairs or waiting it out till a lift becomes available.
Both the above issues are new and have not had to be addressed previously when evaluating student accommodation, however, they are significant considerations that will need to be included going forward. Aside from the Grenfell and COVID considerations, the following considerations should be included when appraising any PBSA option.
Costs
PBSA is at the top end of student accommodation in terms of cost. No doubt the building is all new and fresh compared to most houses, but this comes at a high price. They are the most expensive option and price out many students. Often, you find PBSA is filled with international students and well-off national students limiting your ability to interact with a cross-section of students from all backgrounds. Councils and universities are encouraging PBSAs in place of houses with multiple occupancy (HMO). This should be a cause for concern for students as it will push living costs at university drastically up, not mention rob the enriching experience of sharing a house with a group of friends. Students already struggle to pay for university fees and crippling loan interest, reducing HMOs would further limit access to university education for many.
Fees
Most landlords in the private housing market are good, kind and understanding people. They are aware that it may be the first time living away from home for many students. They consider this when interacting with their tenants and often make above and beyond commitments to their student tenants. PBSA is run by large organisations where profit is the primary motive and see students as just a number. The rules are much stricter for PBSA and they are enforced more stringently as neither the on-premise staff nor the management company has any real vested interest. Meaning if a student breaks any rule there is only one solution. Individual landlords are more considerate and look at all factors before making decisions. Managing 100’s of apartments in PBSA requires streamlined processes and that means high fixed fees for breakages and damages which are auto-applied. E.g. IQ, one of the largest PBSA providers, charges £320 for damaging a bedroom door. In HMOs, there would be a discussion and often, students will be allowed to organise repairs themselves, which are much cheaper. Alternatively, their landlord will ask how it happened, and if it was an accident, repair it at either a reduced cost or at no cost at all.
People
Many students have experienced great landlords that operate as a quasi-parent. Looking after you just enough so you do not feel lost but leaving you to get on with your life. The same cannot be said for PBSA, where profit is the primary purpose. It only takes a quick look on Trustpilot to see this. One review of IQ said, ‘some security guards are quite rude and harass students constantly’. This problem is not unique to IQ, a review of Unite Students said, ‘awful staff attitude and customer service’. PBSAs, in general, have terrible Trustpilot scores with some of the largest being the worst available. IQ scores 2.4, Unite scores 1.3 and The Student Housing Company 1.3.
At the moment there are no direct rating comparisons available for private landlords. We have made it our mission here at Untrapped to change this so that students can make informed decisions across accommodation types and private landlords can showcase themselves as offering a superior university accommodation experience for a much lower cost.
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