Private student accommodation - the start of a problem?

[elbows]

The cap issue is clearly a bit different in Scotland. Apologies for the crap telegraph article but it does reveal some of the issues in recent years

Number of Scots missing out on university more than doubles

 

[Sasaferrato]

Are you under the impression that it's the universities who loan the tuition fees?

No, of course not. When working in debt management for HMRC, student loans were something I came in contact with, didn't have to deal with them directly, thankfully. The loan repayments are part of the employer's PAYE liability.

 

[SpookyFrank]

A massive student flat block in the middle of the city is having its cladding removed, presumably for post-Grenfell reasons as the building's not five years old.

An indicator of the sort of quality of these developments maybe. With the price of a room in this block, which is directly above the student's union, they shouldn't have needed to cut corners.

This is the building with cladding intact, and it's a fucking eyesore:

 

[SpookyFrank]

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

I just stumbled on to a website pitching a new development to investors here in Nottingham. It's in a beautiful old grade II listed factory building that me and various others used to squat years back, and which might well have fallen down by now had squatters not patched up the roof and made the place weathertight again after decades of neglect.

The marketing spiel is truly nauseating. They're talking about my city like it's something they just discovered, a place with high demand and a 'low supply dynamic' (could've fooled me, nothing else has been built here for ten years but fucking student flats) making it ideal for property investors. And the reason it's so ideal is the vast discrepancy between stupidly wealthy parents sending their kids to study here and the dirt-poor local population (we now have the lowest disposable income per houseold of anywhere in the country, as well as the council ward with the highest rate of child poverty in the country) meaning you can buy property cheap and still rent it for a small fortune. If every time you do this it tightens the screw a tiny bit on ordinary people, or convinces a few more crooked landlords to sell up and kick out their tennants, who gives a fuck? This isn't a living breathing city, it's a fucking investment opportunity.

 

[campanula]

Happening everywhere, Frank. Norwich is facing a fucking 21 story high block of flats and various other 'investment flats' - Anglia Square (one of the reasons the developers puff is to remove the general prole-y Greggs, QD,Poundland, nature of a really popular local shopping unit. My daughter has launched a protest (Angrier Square) with some arty thing...but yep, most people are feeling very sold-out...
The actual footprint/personal space of each 'dwelling' is some laughably minuscule amount - will find out, but it is twice as small as similar schemes.
Cambridge is a fucking joke. The 'student' aspect of most of it is a lying scam.

 

[mauvais]

There's one going up in Manchester, where the BBC was before it moved to Salford and the old site got knocked down.

Vita Student | Vita Student Manchester Circle Square

£1200 a month for a one bed apartment. We've been paying that in rent for a four bed house. Less for a mortgage of the same. Who the fuck are these people?

 

[emanymton]

There's one going up in Manchester, where the BBC was before it moved to Salford and the old site got knocked down.

Vita Student | Vita Student Manchester Circle Square

£1200 a month for a one bed apartment. We've been paying that in rent for a four bed house. Less for a mortgage of the same. Who the fuck are these people?

God there tiny as well.

 

[SpookyFrank]

There's one going up in Manchester, where the BBC was before it moved to Salford and the old site got knocked down.

Vita Student | Vita Student Manchester Circle Square

£1200 a month for a one bed apartment. We've been paying that in rent for a four bed house. Less for a mortgage of the same. Who the fuck are these people?

Who are their mums and dads more like. That goes way beyond what even an upper middle class family can swing just to get rid of one of their loathsome offspring for three years. I don't understand the economics of it tbh, how everything can be so skewed towards such a tiny demographic. How councils can with any shred of good faith continually sign off on this endless luxury shit when they know exactly how many people they've got on the waiting list for social housing is another question altogether.

 

[Artaxerxes]

Last time I was back up in Birmingham it looked like half the city centre had been spruced up over the last few years to cater for students, massive blocks of flats and halls.

 

[kebabking]

Who are their mums and dads more like. That goes way beyond what even an upper middle class family can swing just to get rid of one of their loathsome offspring for three years. I don't understand the economics of it tbh, how everything can be so skewed towards such a tiny demographic....

It's a swiz aimed at relieving the parents of overseas students of their money.

The parents of students who can afford it buy a studenty-type flat and install their offspring and one or two flatmates - a nice 3 bed flat in the southside of Glasgow (not in the heart of student land, but nice, and an easy journey to the universities) can be bought for £180k, which equates to a mortgage of about £900 a month - two flatmates will cover most of that, meaning you can house your offspring for about £200 a month, which is something of a bargain.

You then flog the flat when the offspring finishes uni and moves elsewhere - and take whatever profit the change in prices affords you.

 

[equationgirl]

Who are their mums and dads more like. That goes way beyond what even an upper middle class family can swing just to get rid of one of their loathsome offspring for three years. I don't understand the economics of it tbh, how everything can be so skewed towards such a tiny demographic. How councils can with any shred of good faith continually sign off on this endless luxury shit when they know exactly how many people they've got on the waiting list for social housing is another question altogether.

When I went to uni, it was halls for the first year, into shabby student flats for two years, then back to campus for the final year. My parents paid for the accommodation and some of the bills for the flats and I paid the rest.

When my brothers went to uni we each got part of a grant a term, but not a whole grant. My brother went to Nottingham and lived on campus for his first year then in a terraced house for two years. Grotty place but cheap. Even 20 odd years ago his place in Nottingham cost a lot more than mine in Edinburgh.

No way would my parents have been able to afford one of these swanky all inclusive places, not even for one of us. Never mind all three of us.

Since I started this thread more places are being built for students in the city, mostly in the city centre and west end near Glasgow Uni. Whereas 15 years ago office blocks were being bought up by the likes of travelodge and Premier Inn, then converted, these days some are bought by the private student landlord companies for conversion to tiny studios.

 

[Brainaddict]

This monstrosity in Stratford has to be seen to be believed. The photo makes it look like it was personally designed by Kim Jong Il and the reality is, unbelievably, worse:

Stratford ONE Student Accommodation | Student Housing London

 

[bellaozzydog]

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

I wonder what the exit plan for investors is though. They have a ceiling resell price, and swap hands on the market in Plymouth for the same price they were marketed 8-10 years ago.

Seems short sighted as an urban policy but equally shortsighted as an investment, no doubt London has its own market forces that don’t reflect the peripheral cities of the UK

I have a horrible feeling in the near future the size and spec of them is the only thing young people could aspire to live in/own

 

[equationgirl]

This monstrosity in Stratford has to be seen to be believed. The photo makes it look like it was personally designed by Kim Jong Il and the reality is, unbelievably, worse:

Stratford ONE Student Accommodation | Student Housing London

The newest blocks near me aren't totally dissimilar to be honest. The planners couldn't make it any clearer they give nil fucks about the area or the people that used to live in it.

 

[Brainaddict]

The newest blocks near me aren't totally dissimilar to be honest. The planners couldn't make it any clearer they give nil fucks about the area or the people that used to live in it.

Aside, but in my experience a lot of local planners hate a lot of what they approve, but have to approve it because they know their refusal would be struck down at appeal by the government inspectorate. Most people don't realise how centralised our planning system is because the centralisation happens in this slightly sneaky way through the appeals process - which rigorously enforces the lax national frameworks, which local plans can't really constrain too much.

 

[purenarcotic]

I just stumbled on to a website pitching a new development to investors here in Nottingham. It's in a beautiful old grade II listed factory building that me and various others used to squat years back, and which might well have fallen down by now had squatters not patched up the roof and made the place weathertight again after decades of neglect.

The marketing spiel is truly nauseating. They're talking about my city like it's something they just discovered, a place with high demand and a 'low supply dynamic' (could've fooled me, nothing else has been built here for ten years but fucking student flats) making it ideal for property investors. And the reason it's so ideal is the vast discrepancy between stupidly wealthy parents sending their kids to study here and the dirt-poor local population (we now have the lowest disposable income per houseold of anywhere in the country, as well as the council ward with the highest rate of child poverty in the country) meaning you can buy property cheap and still rent it for a small fortune. If every time you do this it tightens the screw a tiny bit on ordinary people, or convinces a few more crooked landlords to sell up and kick out their tennants, who gives a fuck? This isn't a living breathing city, it's a fucking investment opportunity.

It’s so depressing innit. New block of student flats went up behind my office as we’re surrounded by homeless folk and a few minutes walk from a hotel housing asylum seekers. A small park down the road which was a nice wee bit of green space sold to developers and will be a private housing estate. A one bed flat round the corner from my house in a block being built going for 200k whilst people sleep rough outside the co-op in spitting distance of the block. It’s sickening.

 

[elbows]

This BBC article about a massive return to city centre living has quite a lot of interesting stats in it:

The UK's rapid return to city centre living

Students clearly quite a large part of the picture painted, but also note the number of young, single professionals, who are more likely to have a degree.

 

[mauvais]

This BBC article about a massive return to city centre living has quite a lot of interesting stats in it:

The UK's rapid return to city centre living

Students clearly quite a large part of the picture painted, but also note the number of young, single professionals, who are more likely to have a degree.

I think this article misses one thing, at least in the case of Manchester - up to a quite recent point, mid-90s maybe or even later, there was effectively nobody living in Manchester city centre. In 1987, it was 300 people. So, any subsequent gains are going to be high percentages. How sustainable it is is questionable, although I wouldn't claim that Manchester is going to reach saturation any time soon.

 

[crossthebreeze]

I think this article misses one thing, at least in the case of Manchester - up to a quite recent point, mid-90s maybe or even later, there was effectively nobody living in Manchester city centre. In 1987, it was 300 people. So, any subsequent gains are going to be high percentages. How sustainable it is is questionable, although I wouldn't claim that Manchester is going to reach saturation any time soon.

Another point is Newcastle, and I think many other places, until recently the vast majority of people living in the city centre were in social housing.

 

[equationgirl]

This is another student residence building being built in the city centre, right on the riverfront.



It's going to tower over nearby buildings

 

[not-bono-ever]

Another point is Newcastle, and I think many other places, until recently the vast majority of people living in the city centre were in social housing.

Indeed- what residents there were in places like Newcastle were often in some kind of JG Ballard /T Dan Smith blocks - the physical size of some provincial cities meant that there was no need to live in the CBD area, as there was a huge stock of Victorian legacy or 60/70's housing a few minutes bus ride away. there were social housing developments in the late 70s onwards in some neglected areas of these city centres where cheap Victorian built space was freed up as businesses moved to the shiny new out of town shopping centres. There wasn't much doorstep day to day infrastructure to support people in these locations ( late night corner shops/ or convenience stores etc ), So there were slightly anachronistic places to live- certainly not somewhere to bring up a family or out down long term roots.

 

[not-bono-ever]

Additonally, something I keep banging on about is the development of de facto segregation as developers and carpet bagger landlords/ wealthy out of area parents move in and start to suck up *cheap* property. in Newcastle, you can buy an ex LA house/ flat about 5/10 minutes Walk away from the city centre, which is quite astounding when you come to think of it. The structure of the areas has changed- with smaller student numbers last century, it was possible to have a mixed neighbourhood, with long term extended family units in one estate, mixing OK with the odd student rented house and it pretty much worked. Obviously there were boundaries that were never crossed e.g. student in the WM Club was a no no. Now ringed by purpose built new developments, inner city student banlieues have grown, pushing out the established locals and quite frankly, as the students have no emotional investment in the area, the place may be economically richer if you look at the metrics but poorer in softer themes like community and coherence. Education as a business is impacting provincial cities in ways that were never anticipated as Unis expanded.

/rant

 

[scifisam]

I'm not sure it would even be economically richer because students don't pay council tax.

When low income people get council tax reduction the council still gets the money via central govt, but when it's a student exemption they simply get nothing.

 

[not-bono-ever]

I know, its misleading to say richer, but the boom in house prices (all relative) and the consumption by the new population going has exploded. every available retail space in these areas is fast food and off licences and they are always busy. there are no longer any butchers or greengrocers but taxi offices, subways and greggs

eta, I am not hankering over some idealised distant past here either.streets have been cleansed of families as decent accommodation is chopped up into rental units- and living in a weekend 24 hour party people zone is not what families want

 

[not-bono-ever]

The big student clear out: Rubbish left across Cardiff


and its end of term time

 

[teqniq]

The big student clear out: Rubbish left across Cardiff


and its end of term time

Yes I saw that earlier. Currently I cycle down Miskin St on my way to work and can verify that this pretty much happens every time at this time of year, it really is a disgusting mess.

 

[equationgirl]

Here's some photos of the newest blocks near me.

 

[SpookyFrank]

The big student clear out: Rubbish left across Cardiff


and its end of term time

Good time to get some free furniture though. Also signals the start of a solid three month period where you can actually go into the city centre on a weekend evening without bringing a snow plough to get you through the hordes of babbling, shtifaced fancy-dress fuckwits.

 

[Brainaddict]

Worth saying here that the whole scam has not gone unchallenged - there are Cut The Rent groups in various places, most successfully at UCL, where they pulled off an excellent and successful rent strike: Union and Cut The Rent secure rent reductions for 2018/19

 

[SpookyFrank]

Worth saying here that the whole scam has not gone unchallenged - there are Cut The Rent groups in various places, most successfully at UCL, where they pulled off an excellent and successful rent strike: Union and Cut The Rent secure rent reductions for 2018/19

As I understand it the UCL rent strike only applied to the uinversity's own accomodation. Also I honestly don't give a fuck about students being overcharged, what concerns me is local people either being forced out of their communities or enduring big rent increases because of the student market.