Student Housing & Accommodation

I keep reading that one of the benefits of letting property to students is that they aren’t as fussy as professional tenants. And to quote from one article that they “are more prepared to put up with slightly outdated kitchens and colourful bathroom suites than design conscious professional tenants.”

Personally I think the author has got this wrong. Today’s students are brand buying power houses. Students want the very best and that includes housing. They are the IKEA generation. Not only do they wear the latest branded fashions they want to live in the brand house too.

Time and again I’ve talked to landlords who have struggled to rent their property. Good decent housing in the right locations. I recently had a look round just one such property in Sheffield. The house in the desirable Ecclesall Road area was of a good standard. The landlord had extended at the back to provide a huge kitchen and combined living area. It was a nice house in a good location. The only problem I could see was the furniture was the trusty sturdy ‘Old fashioned’ type.

Students want cool, sleek and contemporary properties. If your house does not come up to standard then you’ll likely find it harder to rent them. The problem is if you are new to student renting unless you get the right advice you could easily end up with empty properties.

You need to know what property standards are like in the city you have student property or where you intend to buy (is anyone buying in the current credit crunch climate?). There are a number of ways you can do this

1 Look for adverts with internal picture of houses (more and more of the advertisers in the Student Housing magazine ‘New Student Des Res’ use internal photos to on their adverts. While four student properties on the same street all tend to look the same. Good internal photos can really add selling power).

2 View some properties. If you are buying you will do this as a matter of course. But the empty ones for sale may not be a good indicator of current trends. After all they have failed to let. So view tenanted student houses for sale too.

3 Look at houses for rent or currently tenanted (and not for sale). How can you find where these are? Just go on into a campus bar (in the students’ union) and talk to some students. Buy them a pint and they happily show you their and even their friends houses too. What’s more they’ll likely know who has the best houses. Alternatively you can look at property in the area you are looking to buy in by literally going round and knocking on doors. Some will likely refuse and treat you with suspicion yet others will show you their home.

4 Talk to existing student landlords and student letting agents. Agents in particular know what rents easily and why. They will be able to advise you and possible even show you some property that goes quickly. A good student letting agent should be happy to help you because they’ll see you as a potential future customer.

What will you learn from this - students are much fussier than guides claim, they want contemporary housing. And that good housing even in the right ‘sought after’ area can struggle to let in the furniture or decor is tired and dated.

Student Buy-to-let has great rewards as long as you provide housing that students actually want.

Let me know your thoughts.

Kind Regards
Paul Allison

PS Have to registered on studenthousing.co.uk yet. If not click here and register today and be one of the first to get advance notice when the website goes live.

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Student halls plan ‘will hit conservation area’ - News - getreading - Reading Evening Post
Neighbours fear that a conservation area will be blighted if new halls of residence for students at The University of Reading are given the go-ahead.

The proposed accommodation on the former Mansfield Halls site in London Road will house around 600 students in 171 apartments with open space and road improvements.

To read the whole article click here

Comment: The interesting bit about this article is that Unite clams that the development will allow 160 homes in the town to be released back to local families.

What are your thoughts on this?

Paul

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Scavengers target students’ rubbish - Chester Chronicle

STUDENT houses close to the University of Chester are being targeted by “bag-slashers” who are cutting open bin bags on collection days, leaving streets and alleyways strewn with litter.

To read the full article click here

See the the other article about the same problem in Chester below: Scavengers target students’ rubbish

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New towers plan in Ouseburn area - JournalLive
MORE tower blocks could be built in the Ouseburn area of Newcastle after developers unveiled plans for another 504 flats.

Newcastle Council’s planning committee is to consider allowing eight residential blocks to be built on land near Portland Road.

The development includes proposals for a multi-storey car park for 305 spaces and an underground car park for 320 spaces.

And just a few hundred yards away, plans by a separate development company will see a five-storey student housing block created.

To read the full article click here

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Community Looks Like A War Zone Says Resident (from Daily Echo)
UNWANTED clothes, TVs, videos, stereos and abandoned personal documents lay strewn across the streets.

These are the images that have left residents living in a popular student area comparing their neighbourhood to a war zone.

The latest round of the student housing merry-go-round has seen even more personal belongings dumped outside homes in the Polygon area of Southampton.

Read the article in full here

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Landlords defy credit crunch | Politics | guardian.co.uk: “Landlords defy credit crunch
June 20, 2008 12:09 PM

Last week I invited housing minister Iain Wright to a rapidly changing part of the constituency: Withington.

The area is very popular with students, being so near to Fallowfield and the busy bus corridor to the universities. As such the housing stock is very attractive to landlords and buy-to-let investors, who can expect to charge around £70 a week for a room in a multiple occupancy house, many of which have up to six ‘bedrooms’ (of which more later).

This area has for a long time been desirable to young people and students, but, for a number reasons, there has been a recent acceleration in the percentage of houses being converted into rented homes. What’s the problem with this, you might ask?”

To read the full artilce click here

My Note: Landlords are facing ever more legislation. This is Lucy Powell (the Labour party’s Parliamentary Candidate for Manchester Withington) take on property investors snapping up housing in her area.

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A couple of people have asked: “what form for tenancy agreement would you use for an individual room let?” AST (Assured Shorthold Tenancy) would be fine (as long as the rent is below £25k per year).

You must identify the room the person is letting on the contract itself - so the address of the let would be: room number, 47 Any Street, Anytown, AN5 5TN. If you don’t identify the room they could in theory be renting the whole house.

You can number the bedrooms. This does not mean you have to have the room numbers on the outside of each bedroom door. When I rented a room in a shared house on an individual tenancy the rooms were numbered on the contract but not on the doors. The contract also specified the location of the room too.

You can mark all the furniture in the room as that room number too - so you know what belongs where.

Remember your tenant will have exclusive use of their bedroom - so you would need notice to enter this. As to the communal areas as I said in the blog the best thing to do is to still give notice.

One landlord who is about to let on an individual basis asked what to do if a tenant complains about him calling in. I think in practice most tenants would not complain (unless you were calling in a lot). Remember you do not need to call in unless there is a maintenance issue, or you are collecting rent, showing prospective tenants round or doing a planned inspection (which is always best to notify tenants of in advance so they can at least clean up.)

If you are worried about a tenant complaining - I would have a standard welcome letter and in it specify that they have exclusive use of their room and in effect a licence to use the communal areas (as these are shared with others). Personally I would not state that you call in when you want in this letter.

Then if they complain write to them say that they only have exclusive use of their room as per their moving/welcome letter. Show my blog. BUT I think it would be exceptionally rare.

Remember you want the best ‘working’ relationship with your tenants. The best way to do this is to be professional at all times AND to vet your prospective tenants very carefully (reject any that do not come up to standard or you feel won’t be good tenants).

Hope clarifies things more

Regards

Paul Allison

Filed under: Tenancy Agreements | 1 Comment »

I’m often asked ‘should I use individual tenancy agreements or a Joint Tenancy Agreement?’

• Individual Tenancy Agreements: Where each tenant has their own separate tenancy for their specific bedroom and a license to use communal areas.

• Joint Tenancy Agreement: Where all the tenants sign just one tenancy agreement and have exclusive use of the property for the length of the agreement.

There are several disadvantages and some advantages to individual tenancies - including a brilliant legal advantage that very few landlords know - more on this later.

When students go to university and live in halls - each has an individual contract for their accommodation with either the university or the accommodation provider. So it’s not unusual. A lot of these ‘strangers’ become life long friends.

When to use individual tenancy agreements
Where you have a property with say six bedrooms but there is a scarcity of groups that size then you should consider using this method to your property.

Or perhaps your timing was not right and you have an empty house at a time when students aren’t looking in groups.

Disadvantages
Your tenants will most likely not know each other before moving in. And therefore they may not get on. Where you are filling several rooms or the whole property at once, there is not much you can do about this.

One thing you can do is hold an open viewing and invite as many prospective tenants at once. They can then see each other and ‘somewhat’ get to know one another before moving in.

Where you are filling a room in an existing property (must be one where each tenant has an individual tenancy agreement) then a good idea is to involve the tenants in the selection process.

This happen to me a few years ago when I moved into a shared flat; we each had individual tenancy agreements. I had to pass a selection test with all the existing tenants. Thankfully I did. But where the current tenants did not like a prospect the landlord would not let to that person.

Run away
Under a joint tenancy if one tenant leaves you can pursue any one of the other tenants for the lost rent. If they all have individual contacts and one skips then you can only chase the one that has run away - which may prove difficult.

House trashing
And again under a joint agreement if one trashes the house or their room you can use the deposits from all of them to cover your costs. Not with individual tenancies. (Although students in halls often find they billed for damage when nobody has owned up!)

‘Joint’ in law
Even where you do issue individual tenancies a court may hold it to be joint tenancy especially if the group share all the facilities, pay bills and shop together

The Legal Advantage
As I said earlier there’s a brilliant legal advantage and here it is: You are only issuing a tenancy for a specific room. Not the whole property. The tenant will also have a licence to use the communal areas. But - they do not have exclusive use of the communal areas. This means you have the right to enter communal areas without giving 24 hours notice required under a tenancy.

It may be good practice to still give 24 hours notice - but you are not required to do so.

Hope you find this uselful - either way let me know.

Thanks

Paul Allison

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