Private student accommodation - the start of a problem?

[equationgirl]

There has been a large growth in the number of student accommodation sites, built by the private sector over the past decade. Whereas a university or college town or city might have had one or two blocks close to the campus areas in the past, there now seems to be an epidemic of such places or almost any site which has the merest whiff of a student pound.

For example, I used to live in flats close to the Glasgow uni campus and also close to the western hospital. Now the hospital has closed and the site bought by the University for redevelopment, yet with no university owned student accommodation in the redevelopment plans. With a half mile radius of my old flat, there were nearly 3000 student rooms built within a five year period.

Many of these rooms are priced well outside the budgets of most students, but seem a particular favourite of overseas students particularly Chinese students. The local area is changing too, to accommodate the needs of these students, with more Asian shops and restaurants springing up. But these blocks never seem full, and are built at the expense of housing for long term residents, families and the elderly. A recent new build of 700 student rooms had over 50 objections lodged, yet building went ahead anyway.

I found myself at the mercy of landlords who either wanted to continually put the rent up or sell the flat I was living in, pushing me away from the part of town where I (and others) had settled after moving to the city. I moved twice within a two year period. Others have left the area altogether.

What are your experiences and opinions of private student accommodation?

 

[not-bono-ever]

Dashwood Studios | Student Accommodation | CLV

walworth road, prices from 250-375 per week. almost totally chinese students . this is elephant and castle - scene of the recent lend lease project that ended up with zero affordable accomodation for the displaced locals.

whole areas of newcastle are now referred to as student ghettos and have been abandoned by the long term residents , sick of the shit and hassle - and being priced out of the area by landlords. old shops have been replaced by fast food, further excluding long standing locals. its a fucking pigsty now to be honest

 

[salem]

It's odd. I wonder what the occupancy rates are like?

A little bit of me wonders if these are being built in the hope they can be converted into studio flats and sold off down the line.

 

[Pickman's model]

Not the start of the problem, acceleration of existing trends - these things popular with developers cos no need any affordable units

 

[teqniq]

It's a similar story in Cardiff. Lots of luxury accommodation that's been done round the city centre look well beyond the reach of your average student and I know for a fact that the majority of Chinese students live in the accommodation blocks about a mile and a half from the Uni certainly not in any of these places (I see lots of them on my commute to work which takes me very close to both the accommodation and the uni). Now I have heard a story, and presently it is no more than that, that these new developments are a scam to get round planning regulations. If the developers can claim they are student accommodation usual residential planning regulations do not apply. Once the development is finished it's a done deal and the developer can let the flats out to whoever they like at city-centre prices. I would have thought there are going to be some students who are going to be able to afford these places but they are certainly going to be in a minority and the advertising around these developments as they are in progress certainly suggests they are aimed at people with deep pockets.

 

[editor]

Student accommodation are an oversea investor/local entrepreneur's wet dream. Minimum facilities/minimum room = maximum profits.

 

[xenon]

There's loads of new blocks of student flats in Bristol as investment vehicles. It's shit.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

My nephew is at South Bank, his halls are in Acton.

Why are there halls in Acton?

 

[Idris2002]

Thus blog hasn't been updated in nearly a decade, but it's still sadly relevant:

Holylands Warzone

 

[not-bono-ever]

developrs can do what the fuck they want wrt planning once they have their foot in the door

 

[Idris2002]

My nephew is at South Bank, his halls are in Acton.

Why are there halls in Acton?

Because power tends to corrupt?

 

[chilango]

Many universities sold off their halls to private companies.

So halls are now often also blocks of expensive student flats too.

Further entrenching the status of student as consumer/customer with higher education as product for purchase.

 

[moochedit]

Loads of student flats getting built in Coventry as well. Always gets pissed off locals comments on cov telegraph fb page every time a new one gets announced.

 

[not-bono-ever]

A guide to investing in student accommodation

investing in student accomodation- marketed as low risk - ma and pa will cover the cost apparently

 

[crossthebreeze]

Similar in Newcastle - according to the Chronicle there's been a 44% increase in student-only properties between 2010 and 2016 (and almost certainly an increase since then) - and 1 in 12 of ALL properties in the city is now either student halls or lived in only by students (though a property can be anything from a self-contained 1 bed studio flat to a massive house - its based on council tax exemption records). Some (but i don't think all)what were once University-owned halls have been redeveloped and privatised. Some of the new halls are basically rabbit hutches, but some are luxury with prices of up to £200 or more a week.

Both universities and the local FE colleges have all expanded by a great deal in this time - and a massive increase in international students, particularly Chinese and Indonesian I think. Lots of property adverts for this kind of housing are in Chinese.

The area that's been most affected has been the east end of the city - with the council estates of Shieldfield, Battlefield, and St Anns being pretty much surrounded and cut off from each other by blocks of student accommodation - and massive changes to the kind of shops and bars there are in the area. There's quite a few blocks near where I live, but for now they are concentrated on the old brewery site - and there's actually been a decrease in students living in "ordinary" flats and houses nearby - so students are becoming less integrated in the community.

 

[scifisam]

You can legally pack in loads of people, charge unusually high rents, have the rent paid months or even a year in advance, have the rent really really guaranteed because the student won't be able to graduate till its paid, have guaranteed occupancy year-round (summer schools use them in the summer holidays), grant few rights to your tenants, and due to distance requirements for eligibility for student halls most of your tenants will be foreign students who won't know their rights anyway.

 

[aqua]

Also students don't move into houses in their second year like they used to, they stay in the private halls. Too expensive for many, without the pastoral support university owned accommodation used to have etc and a mixture within the block. All a bit shit for everyone but the ones making the money. Now, where have I heard that before...

 

[Dogsauce]

I dunno, I lived in a student area in Leeds in the 90s that became more and more dominated by buy-to-let student landlords, who once they'd bought all the four and five bed through terraces then moved onto the small two and three beds that were good starter homes for local people and ex-students hanging around. Leafy roads became barren within a couple of years, all vegetation ripped out, replaced with low-maintenance concrete and gravel. Rooms split down the middle to cram in as many as possible. Bins overflowed in narrow back lanes, dickheads partied through the night on weeknights, people had fights in takeaways etc. It radiated outwards into formerly quiet residential areas.

For this reason I'm quite into the idea of purpose-built student accommodation, it takes the pressure off other areas, can be tailored more to student needs, gardens aren't wasted on transient tenants with no inclination to make them nice or look after them. In Leeds a lot of the new blocks are right on the edge of the city centre, spot on for youngsters wanting a lively environment, not somewhere you'd build family accommodation. It doesn't seem like they've been put up at the expense of other kinds of housing, and potentially it frees up regular housing for families. The rents do seem insane mind, and it'd be better if the university provided affordable digs like they used to (several of the bigger old school halls of residences in the leafy suburbs have been sold off for private housing, but it won't be of the affordable kind). I guess in other cities it might not work like this.

 

[se5]

Its all about attracting the principally foreign students' money by providing flash housing. Its good (ie more profitable) for the developers - as this article says A new urban eyesore: Britain's shamefully shoddy student housing - because they dont have to build to the same standard as 'proper' housing. They are regarded in the same way as hotels as they are not occupied full-time but only for the 30 or so weeks of the academic year. As they are not regarded as housing the developer doesnt have to make a contribution to affordable housing as a conventional development would.

I guess the benefit they might bring to a university town is that it reduces demand for private sector rented accommodation so in theory frees it up for non-students, not sure how this works in practice though as most students arent able to afford the high rents of these flash developments

 

[chilango]

I dunno.

I'm speculating (geddit?) Here, but where I live is old workers' tiny two up two down terraces.

Years ago when first visited Reading it had become a student area. Landlords had piled in and MDFed extra bedrooms into the tiny downstairs.

By the time I moved here these HMOs had priced out the students and the BTLers were renting them out to "young professionals" for £1000+ pcm.

Proximity to London and impending CrossRail means commuters are a more lucrative driver of property development than students.

So, in the main, an endless cycle of redeveloping existing halls into more and more profitable models seems to be the focus.

 

[chilango]

I also see houses getting bought up by student's parents for their offspring and kept as BTLs after the kid graduates.

 

[SpookyFrank]

There has been a large growth in the number of student accommodation sites, built by the private sector over the past decade. Whereas a university or college town or city might have had one or two blocks close to the campus areas in the past, there now seems to be an epidemic of such places or almost any site which has the merest whiff of a student pound.

For example, I used to live in flats close to the Glasgow uni campus and also close to the western hospital. Now the hospital has closed and the site bought by the University for redevelopment, yet with no university owned student accommodation in the redevelopment plans. With a half mile radius of my old flat, there were nearly 3000 student rooms built within a five year period.

Many of these rooms are priced well outside the budgets of most students, but seem a particular favourite of overseas students particularly Chinese students. The local area is changing too, to accommodate the needs of these students, with more Asian shops and restaurants springing up. But these blocks never seem full, and are built at the expense of housing for long term residents, families and the elderly. A recent new build of 700 student rooms had over 50 objections lodged, yet building went ahead anyway.

I found myself at the mercy of landlords who either wanted to continually put the rent up or sell the flat I was living in, pushing me away from the part of town where I (and others) had settled after moving to the city. I moved twice within a two year period. Others have left the area altogether.

What are your experiences and opinions of private student accommodation?

Here in Nottingham the number of students relative to the total population is insane. In terms of private lets, there are large parts of town where properties only seem to be advertised to students. This is starting to creep into what used to be cheap, working class neighbourhoods such as the area where I live. I'm looking for a new house right now and rents have noticeably gone up even since last year.

There are also purpose-built student flat blocks going up all over town, many of them aimed at overseas students particularly from Asia, of whom the university of Nottingham goes out of its way to attract as many as possible because of the limitless fees it can charge them. Like everywhere else, social housing waiting lists are long around here but I can't think of any large social housing developments being built or planned in the city. Several prominent historic industrial buildings have been converted as student-only accomodation or are due to be converted. The exorbitant cost of a room in one of these developments means that blocks can be half empty and still turn a profit.

The stony broke local authority doesn't seem to have noticed that students don't pay council tax and so is happy to rubber-stamp as many student housing developments as any cunt wants to build. Increasingly large parts of town are becoming student ghettos. Mrs Frank's family are the last real people left on their street now and the number of pissed braying twats staggering about at three in the morning is completely fucking unacceptable.

Short version: it's a fucking shit show. Someone's getting rich off the back of all this but for ordinary folk it's a nightmare.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Worth pointing out also that all the purpose-built student flat blocks in this city are fucking hideous eyesores. The bigger ones come with a Dominos, Greggs, Tesco metro etc built in just to make sure Mr and Mrs Khan over at the local corner shop aren't getting a brass penny out of the suddenly increased local population.

 

[krink]

This seems to be hitting trouble already here in Sunderland. One of several student blocks (this one in an old, huge department store) is now sitting unfinished and another one has had so much trouble filling the spaces, the landlord wrote to the council to offer some of the 'luxury student apartments' to the housing crisis team. Both are right in the city centre as are two others, there are more on the outskirts and even more further out of town.
I don't really blame the locals for kicking off, the town centre (sorry, city) is absolutely dying, unemployment and shitty jobs are really high and instead of new developments for the benefit of the local population, the city centre is becoming a student ghetto. so you get things like huge votes for brexit and yet nobody can understand it .

 

[DJWrongspeed]

developrs can do what the fuck they want wrt planning once they have their foot in the door

Partly because student accommodation doesn't have to comply with normal planning laws because it's not a normal domestic dwelling.

Agree with the above, a load of sites in central sold to make way for rich students etc....

 

[campanula]

It is a blight in Cambridge. Immune from demands of infrastructure (parking, access to schools, health etc etc.) purpose built block of tiny 'bijoux apartments' or boutique accommodation or similar spurious shit have appeared like a rash all over my town, catering to the massive 'student' industry...while private rentals have been inflated by a huge transient tech industry - it is a perfect storm of massive housing insecurity and homelessness in a fucking wealthy city.
They are practically slums in less than a decade and I have a horrible feeling they will end up as statutory housing when the housing bubble inevitably crashes.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Cash-rich foreign students notwithstanding, all of this growth in businesses geared towards student spending is being funded by a huge debt bubble.

I'm not an economist but that seems like a recipe for trouble.

 

[VeganMight]

There has been a large growth in the number of student accommodation sites, built by the private sector over the past decade. Whereas a university or college town or city might have had one or two blocks close to the campus areas in the past, there now seems to be an epidemic of such places or almost any site which has the merest whiff of a student pound.

For example, I used to live in flats close to the Glasgow uni campus and also close to the western hospital. Now the hospital has closed and the site bought by the University for redevelopment, yet with no university owned student accommodation in the redevelopment plans. With a half mile radius of my old flat, there were nearly 3000 student rooms built within a five year period.

Many of these rooms are priced well outside the budgets of most students, but seem a particular favourite of overseas students particularly Chinese students. The local area is changing too, to accommodate the needs of these students, with more Asian shops and restaurants springing up. But these blocks never seem full, and are built at the expense of housing for long term residents, families and the elderly. A recent new build of 700 student rooms had over 50 objections lodged, yet building went ahead anyway.

I found myself at the mercy of landlords who either wanted to continually put the rent up or sell the flat I was living in, pushing me away from the part of town where I (and others) had settled after moving to the city. I moved twice within a two year period. Others have left the area altogether.

What are your experiences and opinions of private student accommodation?

Racist

 

[not-bono-ever]

Cash-rich foreign students notwithstanding, all of this growth in businesses geared towards student spending is being funded by a huge debt bubble.

I'm not an economist but that seems like a recipe for trouble.

dont worry, its all being packaged up into neat little debt bundles for everyones security

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"

The UK government’s long-awaited sale of nearly £4bn of student loans is expected to price in early December, as the marketing process for its largest ever sale of student debt to private investors draws to a close.

The sale of the loans, which were made to around 450,000 students and first entered repayment between 2002 and 2006, will be by way of securitisation: a process where assets are packaged together and then sold on as bonds of varying levels of risk to investors.

Securitisation is already a significant market for funding higher education in the United States. The UK’s record sale will create a new asset class in Britain backed by income-contingent loans. While the government has previously marketed older, mortgage-style student loans, this represents the UK’s first foray into selling debt whose repayments depend on graduates’ earnings passing a defined threshold, and is the first in a series of issues that are eventually expected to raise £12bn for the Treasury.

The deal will be split into four tranches that range from a single A rating to unrated bonds. While the initial pricing terms are expected to be set next week, the coupon on the senior notes has been fixed at 1 per cent, with an expected weighted average life of 2.9 years.

The UK government will also comply with EU risk retention rules by retaining a “randomly selected pool of assets” of at least 5 per cent. Investors are now “engaged across the capital structure”, according to Barclays, which is acting as sole arranger on the deal. Credit Suisse, JPMorgan and Lloyds are acting as joint lead managers and joint bookrunners.

 

[HoratioCuthbert]

I lived in private accommodation in London Korean friend that shared with me was being aggressively bullied by the landlord after I left. Some of his other flats were also really disgusting.