By Hannah Chappatte,

CEO & Founder at Hybr 

There’s no hiding from it: being a student is more expensive than ever before. In the last two years, the average student rent has gone up by 14.6%, while maintenance loans have only risen by 5.2%. On top of this, interest rates on loans have skyrocketed to 5.25%.

However, university is still a right of passage for a lot of students in the UK and the demand for higher education spots continues to grow. Apprenticeships are an incredible route, but most 17-18 year olds are not ready to commit to one career path (most 27 year olds I know still don’t know what they want to do).

To maintain the UK’s reputation as one of the best global destinations to study, we need more student housing.

The context:

• Growing student population: Currently 2.9m students, rising by around 2% each year, and housing can’t keep up (there will be an estimated deficit of 600k beds by 2026).
• Growing pressure on universities: universities are a great source of pride and contributor to GDP, but face brand & financial issues due to financial constraints and a lack of affordable student housing.
• PBSA is pricing students out of the market: the mismatch of demand and supply is making accommodation unaffordable for most students, putting a lot of financial pressure on our youth.

The solution is not to keep on building more expensive student rooms, but to better understand renter and market data to build ‘wanted’ housing.

Why?

• There is a mismatch between what student renters can afford, and what is being built. Investors and developers are shying away from opportunities to invest in self-service and affordable student housing with no amenities. Instead, we need to align government policy, local council, developers, investors, universities, and students to make sure that we’re building the right type of housing using data of what renters will pay for.
• There is not enough data across the entirety of the market (PRS, HMO, PBSA, Co-living, even BTR), which leads to a poor understanding of market dynamics and encourages development of housing in the wrong cities  (e.g. Coventry, instead of Bristol). Instead, we need more holistic datasets across the residential sector, and to build more trust in third-parties (like Hybr) when it comes to playing this role. This will help give the market better visibility to make strategic decisions.
• Councils block student developments because of negative stereotypes around students’ impact on local areas, when in fact students boost local economies, increase diversity, and add vibrancy in cities across the UK. Instead, councils should track the impact of young people in their cities, and use this data as evidence to focus on policies that help attract and retain a higher number of students and graduates in student towns.
• Operators shy away from the latest technologies. Instead, operators should use PropTech solutions that prioritise the user and save on operational budget to keep rents from rising. For example, automating lettings with Hybr, removes manual tasks when marketing your portfolio on various channels, managing and vetting enquiries, managing viewings to prevent no shows, and accelerating offers with smart analytics. Or, investing in an automatic prompt to turn down the thermostat. Both examples, save operational budget and create a better renter experience.
• A lot of operators use different property management systems (PMS), and 3rd party tools that do not integrate via API, which creates a disconnected and clunky renter journey, and slows down internal teams. Instead, PropTech solutions need to work together to create connected journeys that save teams’ time, and improve the renters’ experience.

To summarise, at Hybr, we believe that giving stakeholders better access to data across the residential sector will ensure the right strategic decisions are made on housing. We should be proud of the universities on offer across the UK, and we should continue to promote the UK as an educational hub for the future leaders of tomorrow. If through international students alone, each city across the UK shares in an estimated £25bn in direct and indirect economic benefit, we think we can find the time to invest in tech to improve the UK student housing experience from development, to lettings, and operations.