Landlords have had it relatively easy up to now. Students aren’t particularly fussy creatures and given the imbalance of demand outweighing supply, the power is with the owner meaning high yields can be made. But given recent factors such as the development of technology and increase in tuition fees, it begs the question, for how much longer will this continue to be the case?
How increased tuition fees will affect landlords
With regards to tuition fees, changes to their levels in Britain have meant many potential university students have been forced to give serious consideration to their application. The impact can already be seen with the Summer 2012 intake, with a nine per cent drop in British students applying to go to Uni. Yes you can argue that previous years have seen a continued growth in applications, but the key thing to remember is that the number of student property owners is always on the increase.
How improvements in technology will affect landlords
Students will always talk about their experiences with a landlord, good or bad. Up to now they haven’t really had the opportunity to express their opinions outside of their friendship circles, but now there is a variety of ways for them to air their grievances to a much wider market. The majority of students will have Facebook, and will typically have 300+ friends who they can inform in seconds of anything, including bad service from a landlord. And it’s not just limited to online networks. Twitter is another social media site that is popular with students, and this time their grievances can be made 100% public – not just to their followers, but their ‘tweets’ are also saved in Google, This means that if someone searches for a landlord or the lettings agent, the tweet may come up in their search engine results. Alongside this, many review websites and forums will also show up in Google searches, meaning prospective tenants could be told of previous tenants experiences, potentially putting them off from a property long before seeing it.
Just over a year ago I was still a student living in shared accommodation and I could name you landlords who:
- Left a friend of mine to sleep on their couch for 2 weeks because of her room flooding over the Christmas period – no compensation was offered.
- Left a bathroom smelling like sewage at a friend’s house, for over 3 weeks, during their exam period, and then avoided answering phone calls, returning voicemails or replying to emails.
- Had installed a loft room which was subsequently let it out, despite not having planning permission. Once caught by the relevant authorities, the lounge was changed to a bedroom and the kitchen became a cramped kitchen / lounge. No reduction in rent was offered.
Just the fact that you are reading these stories should be a warning sign that it is becoming even easier to get experiences with landlords out there.
Even last year when I walked from the student suburb into the City Centre I would see student lets sat empty, showing that supply is perhaps starting to level out against demand. If you took a typical 5-bedroom student house let out at the national average for rent, that’s a loss of revenue to the sum of just over £13,500 to the owner. And the fact is as long as new student numbers are going down, new landlords are going up and existing students are becoming increasingly able to warn off other students from poor landlords, it means that things have to change. No longer will a fancy modern office be able to rent out houses, but it will be being able to offer competitive rental rates and good customer service – to uphold a reputation that will be key.
About the author: Ashley Auckle is a former student who now works with GNB Software
My Son was a student in Birmingham staying in a Cosmopolitan companies block of apartments.
All well there, however he left Uni and started work in the Far East before the end of his course. It was agreed with Cosmo to pay his rent over a few Months as no grant had arrived, after he left they naturally said he had to pay rent till the end of the Uni Year. From the Far East it was my son who informed us thst the apartment had been re-let and Cosmo only confirmed this when a date had been given too them. Next they said they had tried contacting me several times but unable…..our phone is 24/7 and diverted to a mobile ….plus numbers are recorded…none of their office numbers were recorded.
Payments had not been received they said….theirfore they put the matter in the hands of a debt agency….who was able to contact me by phone without any problem!!!??
It took over a month to show that payment had been paid and accepted by their bank… but they were not interested and demanded full payment within 1 week.
Cosmo management were less than polite and even the debt collection company had doubts as to Cosmo’ credibility. My bank tried to contact Cosmo head office for almost 2 hours but no one in authority was available for them. Two days later I got through to a Cosmo account office staff…they checked up on their computer and stated that the payments had been received as originally stated and it was an error on their side.
Further E mails to Cosmo Snr. Management…Now 2 weeks later (12th July till 27th July) I receive a very discourteous email, no apology or mention that the error lay in their head office and demanding immediate payment of the balance. Which they would have had some while back if they had not lost the 2 payments totaling £650.
This company think they are the market leaders? “Pride goes before a fall”
I spent 3 working days to prove they were in error, Senior management wouldn’t accept that THEY could be mistaken even when there own bank gave details showing the transaction had gone through. Go carefully with these the so called market Leaders.