Student housing - no longer an "alternative investment" opportunity
If you are looking for a solid investment opportunity, the suggestion would most definitely be to look into the student housing market. It started with the reputation of being somewhat of a side project, however, we have reached a stage where it can no longer be seen as just another "alternative" investment opportunity according to Brian Lloyd-Jones of Unite Students. In an article discussing student housing being a mainstream asset class, Property Reporter discussed growth, population and target markets. At CPS Homes we would always advise you to think carefully about going into an unknown market and also remind you that there is always assistance along the way. We are experts in the field of property management, whether for students, young professionals or families.
A side project
According to Brian Lloyd-Jones, the student housing market is a highly yield driven, stable investment type – similar to the commercial property market. Thus putting student property in a completely different category to “side projects”, and we’d have to agree with this. When taking on investments as such, it’s important to allow for time and budget along with planning and strategy to ensure that you manage your investment well. We can help to a certain extent with various services including HMO regulations and advice, property management and landlord guidance. With these services on offer, we can give you as much time as possible to ensure that you are fully supported throughout the process.
Students continuously increasing
Knight Frank stated in the same report that the UK demonstrated its strong performance of its student housing market through and average yield growth of 1.59%. Looking at specifics, the northwest of the country saw a rental growth of as much as 4% and from a 2011 census indicating that there were 5000,000 full time students across England and Wales, things are set to increase.
George Osborne recently announced that this was going to improve, allowing British universities to recruit approximately 30,000 new students in 2015. This isn’t to say that each area is fully equipped to supply to students; in reality certain locations are undersupplied, stated the Property Reporter, with some universities struggling to supply accommodation to both new and returning students.
The look ahead
Sheffield, Nottingham, Leeds and Manchester are currently the largest universities, aside from London, however the comparatively smaller universities like Glyndwr, Essex, Aberdeen and Coventry all boast the highest numbers of students being from foreign countries. With the high numbers of students studying in the UK causing a high demand for accommodation along with the imbalanced number of suppliers, the student housing market is definitely one to be taken seriously. Especially given that the market has a promising long-term investment advantage and is set to be the sector certain to see the most growth as told by Property Reporter.
If this market sounds like an investment opportunity that you would like to be a part of, now is the time to start taking things seriously. Here at CPS we can provide you with the support and guidance to make the process a much easier task.
