The purpose-built student accommodation market has an opportunity to pitch itself as the most cost-effective choice for students during the cost-of-living crisis.
A new report by Knight Frank found students could save more than £5,500 a year in an all-inclusive PBSA room versus living in a shared house rented from private landlords.
In 80% of the university towns and cities Knight Frank looked at, the average cost of PBSA was lower than the average for the wider rental market. The greatest difference is in London, where students in PBSA pay a third less – £5,527 over a year – than the wider market once bills are included.
Liverpool, Sheffield, Glasgow and Leicester offered savings of roughly 25%, 15%, 14% and 11% respectively; Bristol and Nottingham 10%; Coventry, Edinburgh and Exeter 8%; and Newcastle 5%. Birmingham was the only city in which average PBSA and PRS rents were the same, while in Manchester, Southampton and Brighton, PBSA is more expensive.
Neil Armstrong, joint head of student property at Knight Frank, said: “Further energy cost inflation over the coming months will likely widen these differences; operators of PBSA will absorb much of the uplift and not pass it on to their customers – a luxury that won’t be afforded to students renting in the private rental market.”
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