On Tuesday 9 May, LD Events organised an in-depth review of the
current student housing market with panel discussions from a wide
range of industry experts.
Here are my five takeaway points from the Conference:
Demand versus Viability
The student housing sector is seeing unprecedented demand,
largely driven by a 23% increase in international students and a
33% increase in postgraduate students since the 2019/2020 academic
year. During that 2 year period there has been an increase in
demand of 59,190 beds in London but only an extra 1,511 PBSA units
have been built.
So what's stopping us from building more?
Money!
Despite a healthy growth in rents within the sector, they
can't keep up with rising costs from construction (including as
a result of the Building Safety Act), the unwieldy planning system
and operator costs (including a 30-50% increase in the cost of
utilities and staff pay rises of 10% to keep up with inflation). It
costs an average of £80/90k
