The Importance of Data in Student Accommodation - Paul Humphreys and Tuely Robins of StudentCrowd

In our final episode of our summer series for Housed we chatted with Paul Humphreys and Tuely Robins of StudentCrowd. Paul co-founded the decision-making platform in 2014 and it has now helped over 12 million users, it also provides datasets to support the decision making of both operators and property advisors. Having specialised in data articulation, Tuely now focuses on strategic partnerships which support StudentCrowd, the sector and student experience.

Sarah, Deenie and Dan chat with the StudentCrowd team about:
🔵 Helping students to make better decisions with their accommodation
🔵 Tracking trends for universities
🔵 The importance of responding to online reviews 
🔵 The key growing trends in the sector
🔵 The divide between prospects and current students on their need for en-suites
🔵 How student voices help to make critical decisions
🔵 The challenge of building affordable accommodation
and...we find out what StudentCrowd call their 'panic index'!

Each week, Sarah Canning, Deenie Lee of The Property Marketing Strategists and Daniel Smith of Student Housing Consultancy will be delving into a wide variety of subjects and asking the questions that aren't often asked. This podcast is for anyone who works in Student Accommodation, BTR, Co-living, Operational Real Estate or Shared Living.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are the personal views of the individual hosts.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello and welcome to this very special episode of How's the Shared Living Podcast The Summer Sessions? It's the final one in the series. If you haven't caught up on our other episodes, we did a great one with Hannah Schapat and we did our bumper episode with Rebecca O'Hare, Jenny Shaw, Laura Bosworth, Richard Stott, and Honor Barrett last week and also Stephen Kleel. So please do check those out in all the normal places. That will be the last of our episode, as I said, and we'll be back to our normal series where we'll be discussing the weekly news following next week. But on to this episode, I'm Deanny Lee from the Property Marketing Strategists.

SPEAKER_04 0:36

I'm Dan Smith from Student Housing Consultancy.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

And I'm Sarah Canning from the Property Marketing Strategy.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

So we're really delighted to be joined today by Chulie and Paul from Student Crowd. Student Crowd is a widely respected voice in the PBSA sector coming onto the scene in 2014. But it actually feels really, guys, that you've always been there. And I know and I think everyone is that we're glad that you are. You've given a much needed on-the-pulse data across the sector, which I think for far too long was really absent from the sector. So we're really delighted to have you both here today. But it'd be great if for I guess you can kind of introduce yourselves to the audience.

SPEAKER_03 1:12

Well, thank you for having us. I'm Paul Humphreys, founder and CEO at Student Crowd.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

And I'm Julie Robbins and I'm director of strategic partnerships here at Student Crowd. Great.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Welcome guys. It's really, really great to have you and really pleased to have you here. Paul, just as a first question, really, as co-founder of Student Crowd, what did you set out to achieve and have you done it?

SPEAKER_03 1:34

Well, we created Student Crowd to help students to make three key decisions which university, which course, and which accommodation. Since 2014, we've helped over 12 million students to make those choices. So to answer your question directly, we have achieved what we set out to do. Has surprised us is that out of those three decisions, it was accommodation that students needed the most help with. And it's accommodation which has become the focal point of the student crowd platform.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

That's great, thank you. And I think you know, we we run a youth forum and we often ask the question about where did you find your information about accommodation, where did you get that from? And consistently, student crowd comes up near the top of that list. So you've clearly achieved something and it's clearly really important. And I we did last week's podcast with Steve from UCAS, and we had the same conversation about that. There's not enough information out there for students on accommodation, what their options are, where they should go, and you've really provided a place for that. So really great and well done. And what bits are you most proud of?

SPEAKER_03 2:34

I think we're most proud that we have built the platform that students need in order to make the best decisions. We have a number of attributes that are totally unique to student crowd. So, firstly, we have all the options, so every single university hall and private PBSA is available on student crowd, and all the all those options have verified student reviews that students and their parents can read about those properties. All of those options are updated with live prices for every tenancy type, the room's availability, details that matter to students, like does the property have a gym, is it catered, and all those attributes. And I think the combination of that is that we have created the best tool for students to find accommodation that will really fit their needs. But we're also really proud of how we help the sector, helping providers to respond to those reviews, get their best digital assets on their profiles, and generate uh highly engaged referrals. We recently filmed a case study with Homes for Students, which contained my new favourite quote, which is that student crowd brings us between 20 to 35 times ROI, depending on the site and the city. So I think as your youth survey suggests, it is a leading platform for students, both domestic and international, to make decisions. And we think it's especially important for international students when they have limited access to open days.

SPEAKER_04 4:02

What you've just explained now, obviously vital to the students in decision making, but you're fast becoming incredibly important to all of the operators that work with you. And I understand the the way it's the way it's done. Obviously, they can claim their property page, and the results have been pretty astronomical. And you mentioned home for students and that you've just done a case study with M.I. I spoke to them a while back, and and they were just over the moon with the performance of student crowd. And I think they were equating it to Google in that sense. Now that's what we need. Are we no one wants to be spending money with Google, you know, News Flash, the PPC is a is very much a race to the bottom. But if you can enhance your service offering and I think work with key partners of the industry that are trying to improve the industry, I think that is where everybody wants to be putting their money. So, you know, great that you're able to showcase that in a case study. I was privy to that information a while back. And and most of my clients that I work with also, I'm recommending that they work with student crowd because we've seen that we want to steer people away from just that race to the bottom in PPC. So are you seeing that that your numbers each year are sort of you know improving time after time for those properties that come onto the platform? And are you able to really sort of track those trends, I suppose, for applications as well for the university through looking at that?

SPEAKER_03 5:29

Well, firstly, Dan, that is really kind. Thank you. And yes, we are. I think the the influence of the platform is is only growing. The the concept really is that by the time that a student is looking, is reading reviews of of a building, they're they're they're quite close to actually, they're quite close to making a booking decision. Uh, and often it is the parents as well. They're kind of I know that this whole forum has spoken about parents on a number of occasions, absolutely critical to the decision-making process. Uh, but we we do see we are seeing that we are starting to disrupt perhaps some of those allocations that that were made traditionally have gone to PPC.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

I just want to touch on we talked about Google before, and I guess we love your reviews. Our clients, you know, nearly all of them, if not all of them, are so proud of when they rank well with your reviews. How do you guys constantly stay relevant to students when they're you've also got Google reviews, Facebook reviews, all the other type trip advisory type reviews that that people how you know why why is yours, your service different or better to any of those kind of review sites?

SPEAKER_02 6:35

I think when we consider the decision-making process and the point at which students are when they're making some of those decisions, it's the fact that it's all verified. So you can't leave a review unless you're a verified student. So it's the fact that it's verified that makes it trustworthy. And also, I think there's quite a big misnomer that reviews trend towards cheerleaders or axe grinders, um, and actually, a lot of the reviews that we get on our site are really balanced, um, and so I think a lot of it is in the way that we've designed our review form, encourages quite a balanced view. So you're not just getting someone on our site being ranty or coming on our site to review the flower beds or something completely irrelevant. They're coming onto our site and they're they're reviewing things that are directly relevant to the student experience in a really balanced way, and I think it's that that really goes in our favour when it comes to student engagement, is they feel like you can trust it and they're also finding relevant timely information.

SPEAKER_03 7:35

And maybe just to add to that, uh I would say I would totally agree with you, but also that the something like a Google review or a trust pilot review will say, you know, rate your accommodation out of five. So was my experience a four over 12 months? It's quite or maybe it was more of a three. Whereas we're saying, what was the location like? What was the value for money like? What was the Wi-Fi like? You know, it's it's a that granularity is really important. Um and we also have a very specific review moderation content guidelines which are for higher education and that they're they're fit for purpose. Um, and you know, any any of our partners can speak to us about a review. We will not necessarily take it down, but we will we will actually engage with each one and and look because each you know the rep the online reputation of a property is is critical and we we take that responsibility really seriously.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

So a lot of the strength in it is how it's responded to as well, isn't it? It's that it's that trust I think that people build with the brand and with the the operator, you know, if if reviews aren't responded to or addressed, that speaks volumes about the kind of company that you're dealing with. Um so I guess the people that see the most value are the ones that are constantly engaging with it.

SPEAKER_02 8:51

I think as well, just talking about that response, there's there's something really powerful in a really good response, even if it originally was a negative review, because it's such a great way to demonstrate that you're engaging directly with your student voice and not just ignoring it, but actively engaging with it and responding to it. Um so some of the best, best engaged reviews actually are where there's been a slightly negative review, but then the response to the review has fixed the problem, and then you see a lot of click-throughs coming from the embedded links within that response. So, yeah, you're absolutely spot on.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Have you found it difficult to engage people in that process and that understanding? Because I think one of the things that we've I'm sure discussed on house before is that customer service is vitally important to that sector, but it's very rare you'll find a customer service person who's responsible solely for reviews or complaints or that process. So is it hard to get people to understand the benefit of that resource and that priority? And it's not just another thing on a list of a million one other things for people to do.

SPEAKER_03 9:54

I I would say it probably was quite hard to start with, where we I felt a bit like in the early days we were trying to share with the sector just how important online reviews could be. But now I think it is really well understood. It's more about it's more about how an operator manages. And and we've we developed our system so that it can be a single person within a central team who responds to every review. It can be a site team managed responsibility, it can be a hybrid. We'll we all do webinars with a with the entire team, uh doing top tips for how to apply. It's less of a battle for understanding, it's more about how we can help people to do it to do it best, really.

SPEAKER_04 10:38

You've managed to keep that credibility too. In in terms of the actual reviews, I know that you have to have 10 reviews before you can you know fully register your property and start receiving leads, and that just little policies like that just makes a big difference to students, seeing that actually you know you need to have a certain numbers, but also to the operators. And I've had a few operators in the past say, Oh, we don't have time to do student get student crowd up and running because we need 10 reviews. And then uh actually this year a new client put student crowd in place and managed to turn around 10 reviews in one week. And you know, just by standing at the front with a uh with an iPad and saying, like, here you go, tell us what you think about it, or you know, go go and fill it out in your own time. So it can be used as quite a tactical marketing platform as well as that long-term relationship building and and the sort of trust that reviews actually actually bring about because we know that students really look at this. There's a reason the rankings are so important for universities. Well, it's exactly the same for accommodation providers as well. So I think having those measures and policies in place that bring about that credibility can uh can really help, makes a big difference.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

Was the kind of the packaging up of the data always part of the student crowd pitch, or did it happen organically because of the quality of information you actually found yourself gathering?

SPEAKER_03 11:57

It's a great question. And the honest answer is that we had zero plans to create a data set product in the beginning. But in in what I was explaining earlier about we we felt it was important for students to see every option and they need to see the live prices of every option, they need to know the availability, they need to know, they need to have verified student reviews. We we inadvertently created the best data set in the sector because no one else has that 100% or tracks you know weekly rental data or or collates verified reviews. So it's five years ago now we were asked to start licensing the data set, starting with some of the leading advisors in the sector, and then some of the leading operators uh got on board as well, and now it's applying to to most of the leading operators, I think eight out of the biggest ten, as well as leading advisors, investors, developers, and universities over the last couple of years as well.

SPEAKER_04 12:49

What what data is it that you're providing? What are you finding that's that's most used by investors or agents?

SPEAKER_02 12:57

It's essentially the same data that students need. So it's all of that decision-making data. So it's as Paul's just described, it's all the live pricing, it's all the live availability, it's details about the features of each of those buildings, it's details about the incentives that are associated with the tenancies that are available, it's all of that amalgamation of stuff, along with you know all of the standard operational stuff, so the room type names and the length of the tenancy and whether the tenancy is fixed or flexible, and you know, all of that great stuff. I guess because it started out being there to service the student, it's grown out from that. And I think probably the thing that really sparks interest from the majority of our partners is the fact that it's all combined in one place. So rather than somebody having to go and find how many buildings are there in Nottingham, and then of those buildings, how many have got 51-week tenancies, and of those 51-week tenancies, how many are in studios, it's all in one place. So it's the it's the efficiency of it as much as anything else that really sparks the interest from larger organisations, and then the fact that you can really tailor it. So if you are a small operator and you might only have studios in your building, you can just look at all studios across the market and really understand what's going on in them over time, and then I think combining that with the student review data just gives that extra nugget of reputational value as well as uh the operational facts.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

I think what's what's really powerful is you've got all those levels of data, you've got all that volumes of data, and I think also you're you've got that over time, and you're tracking those trends and you're tracking those changes, and you're able to feed that back. So, what have you seen over those years since you've been developing that data set and what what is it telling us or telling you or telling the sector?

SPEAKER_02 14:45

Yeah, it's a really good question. We could probably have filled about five hours with all of the various different things that the data tells us. I won't do five hours now, you'll be happy to know. I think probably one of the most important things to us is that because we uniquely can combine that operational data with our student opinion data, that's kind of where some of the best magic comes. We probably showcased that most recently at LD events back in May. And what we've been seeing as key growing trends, I guess, over the last few years is that higher prices have also simultaneously combined with higher expectations from students, as it probably should. It also then means it's really critical for operators or developers to think about perceptions of value for money, not just what amenities they want to have within their buildings. We've also seen that interestingly, some of the lowest satisfaction scores tend to be in that sort of £150 to £200 pricing bracket, and just by chance that happens to be the highest proportion of tenancies in our sector at the moment fall within that bracket. That price bracket's particularly tough, I think, because you're asking students to spend just that little bit more, but they're not necessarily getting all of the amenities, which therefore means that your site teams really have to then justify that price point. And obviously, there's a lot of variability between one site team versus another. And we're also increasingly seeing, really interestingly, a divide between things like for those students who haven't arrived yet, so prospective students, they're really considering that ensuites and things like that are really, really important. Whereas as soon as you switch to current students, so those students that have already arrived, they've made their friends, they know who they're sharing a bathroom with, that ensuite suddenly becomes less important to them. So we're seeing some really interesting sort of qualitative things coming out of the data in that respect. So we definitely wonder whether there's something in the marketing, there's something in the information that we provide about some of those facilities that could enable slightly better decision making. Probably to the point that Steve was making last point last week is that if there was better information out there, is there a better measure of fit that students could be using to make a really good choice for where they're going to thrive? I guess to that end, one of the developments that we've made over the last few months is bringing building features into our insight tool so that all of those operators and advisors that are using our tools can now readily make those comparisons. We're hoping that will really help with some creative thinking around the way buildings are configured.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

And the million-dollar question is: can you see tangible ways that your data is being used? Is it pushing the bar where it comes to student accommodation, developing either the actual product or the services?

SPEAKER_02 17:32

It can sometimes feel a bit removed from us because obviously we send our data out into the ether and it gets used in all sorts of different various ways by advisors and operators themselves. But I think some of the really great stuff is when we do engage, like the case study we did with tones of students recently, but also other case studies that we've done with other operators as well, where they talk about bringing that student voice in, and it's that student voice that's made the critical decision between should we have a bigger study space or should we add a cinema or you know, should we have a communal engagement program that looks like X or should we have one that looks like Y? And so it's understanding that impact that all of that has had, as well as you know, some of the slightly boring nuts and bolts, you know, should we have this incentive or that incentive? Well, there's so much in the data about that that it can be quite an easy decision sometimes. But yeah, it's it's really fun when we get some of that feedback directly from from operators and developers that where it's had a big impact like that.

SPEAKER_03 18:30

Yeah, then we ran we ran a nice case study uh last property week with Unite and how they used it for development decisions, but and then um PwC and how they're using it for all kinds of advice. So I I but as Julie mentioned, it is because we've created a tool, it's not consultancy business. We don't produce reports uh primarily, we produce tools. We don't always get to see um the kind of fruits and how it's helped people.

SPEAKER_04 18:55

Yeah, I can tell you now it is definitely having an impact. And it's mentioned more and more by investor clients of mine and and used by them as well. I think one of the ways that operators basically you will look to use your data, will be trying to understand the performance comparatively for them against any other PBSA operator in in a city. And you've mentioned incentives already, Julie, and and the the the all-important occupancy. And that's the thing that it's great for me that no one really understands the occupancy particularly well, because I will use my network to go in and and do the mystery tours and the shops and whatever else it might need to then go and ascertain exactly what the occupancy level is in a property, in a city, or whatever it might be. How close are you guys to ultimately having full occupancy available for anyone to see exactly how a certain property is performing?

SPEAKER_03 19:52

Good question. To help us a little bit, so you have actually helped a bit already by talking about uh mystery shopping. Is it the occupancy in the buildings today, or is it more the occupancy for the next academic cycle?

SPEAKER_04 20:04

It's it's both. So I I will always look at spot occupancy, the occupancy like exactly right now, how are how are things looking, but I'm also looking at the annual occupancy as well, and that's for the existing year, but also the following year. So it's that blended annual occupancy that you want to see and understand when you get towards the end of the year, but also the spot occupancy as of right now. So yeah, we we are a bit picky as to, and I don't I don't think we're particularly clear about the terms that we use, to be completely honest.

SPEAKER_03 20:33

That's really insightful because one of the things that we've really noticed within the whole sector, and then something that truly really led on for us was producing a data dictionary to really define what we mean by things like part nominated, etc. etc. Occupancy has been a real challenge. Uh, I think some of the challenges around occupancy include things like if you so if we're thinking about next year, if there is a NOMS agreement in place, does that make it occupied? Is it how is it soft? Is it hard? What what are the get out clauses, international agents agreements, even booked accommodation, whether it's with an international student, it might be, they might not get their grades. Is that book is that occupied? Is it not? Rooms up for refurbishment, rooms perhaps being released later in the year. What's always concerned us about occupancy is to be able to state a fact is very, very difficult in that area. But I we we haven't probably done anywhere near as much work as you um in it. So I wonder what you might think about our observations about occupancy.

SPEAKER_04 21:34

Yeah, it's it it's the sanity behind you know claiming that a booking is a booking when actually it's not, it's a tentative booking, or you know, talking you talk about the nominations agreements and and whether they're hard and soft. You fully understand the sector and the challenges that we deal with when we talk about it. And you know, Unite, for example, they've got fifty four to fifty six percent of their um rooms will be completely. nominated. Well, yeah, you're right to question what are the get-out clauses in that? Are there break clauses or is this you know a soft nominations for some? And then the marketplaces, they're now getting involved in that, which I'm I'll be honest, it concerns me slightly. And I'm I wonder how they're all doing in terms of filling those nominations agreements. But but yeah, how should a PBSA operator declare that? How can you get the granular detail to fully understand it? And I think one of the things that could be a problem and I know that data providers in the US have struggled with it is the declaring the occupancy, the end game for an operator should be about dynamic pricing. You can look at it from an operational perspective as you as uh ongoing dynamic pricing, how can you push your pricing up and down depending on the demand, or you can look at this as a feasibility study as well. You know, you can use the occupancy data for that. They're kind of two very different things but but I think with regards to operators using that occupancy data for dynamic pricing, no one's nailed that occupancy data well enough yet to enable full, proper dynamic pricing. We talk about it, but it's not it's tiered pricing. That's the only thing that we've done. So I think that there is an opportunity here to say right we've got dynamic pricing this is your spot occupancy for next year. Typically that's what you're going to be looking for. And therefore we've got 10 other competitors in and around that city we know that they are at 50% occupancy or 40 or 30 or whatever. We're miles ahead of that so we know that we can push our rates a little bit and then you can do that on an automated basis. But they've struggled with that quite a lot in the US. There have been a few kind of legal issues as well shall we say so what in your mind how are you expecting people to use the occupancy data?

SPEAKER_03 23:52

Yeah to be really clear we don't we don't collect any occupancy data like that. We would collect availability data so that whether a provider is saying that there are gold studios available in this property right now or whether they've sold out. And in certain cities your Bristols and your Glasgows that you know in April you can see that there's only a few properties with with any availability left. It's quite useful for considering occupancy but it is you know it's on or off and for us to get the number of rooms we'd have to ask the operator to send us that and that's we we definitely don't see that as part of our mission. But what we do see is our mission is is collecting all that publicly available data and making it really accessible and what we're seeing is the leading operators are are able to really derive some occup let's call it occupancy insight based on what people what other providers are doing. So for example if the uh if the property down the road has got their gold studios and they're reducing the price and bumping up the incentives they probably have greater than expected occupancy. And and what what we found in our conversations is that the leading operators are able to you know to make to make decisions based on that rat perhaps rather than rather than perhaps trusting in what would be incomplete data at best if we were to try to collect it. Certainly not everyone would want to share it and and we don't really want to collect it if we're being totally honest.

SPEAKER_04 25:26

The fact that you track incentives that's also key because it's a backdoor revenue discount let's let's be really clear about this it doesn't matter where it sits I know that some investors want to protect the gross revenue I totally get that. So you can fold uh incentives and discounts into another revenue uh into another line in the opex or whatever it might be but that it's so useful to track that information because you're right you can spot it it's a canary in the coal mine for Leeds is a prime example this year of a city that's really really struggling for various different reasons I've just written a big report on it for a client and you know going through lots of tactical marketing off the back of that. But it's I think it's really important to understand what those incentives are and when they've dropped and what you know when the prices have dropped or what's come in in terms of an incentive is it £100 cash back cash back or whatever it might be. Very very few operators will ever track that on their own. So that's where you know a system like yours and a and a service like yours really comes into its own for them for sure.

SPEAKER_00 26:27

With that I guess the point you made before Paul is that you're you're giving the you're making the insight available you're not giving people the answers you're not consultancy. So something like the incentives that Dan was just mentioning the answers aren't there. You've got to go and find them and you can draw your own conclusions. Is there any barrier to to clients from from purchasing your data from having access to the insight you know do they do they want to use the clues as it were to get to their own answers do you think?

SPEAKER_03 26:59

Yeah I think probably if there was a barrier it would be that certainly over the last few years you've needed to have a data scientist in order to crunch that data to make to make good use out of it. And you know our focal point was on you know really getting the the complete data source and also having responsibility to make sure it's really high quality. What we've done um since we raised investment last September, we've heavily invested into our insights and analysis tools so that effectively you can select you know in your map view of a city filter it down on the things that matter to you it could be just properties with a gym, a certain price bracket, a certain part of the city, a certain review score, here's my peer group and then click one button and it produces all the charts so to Dan's example before about incentives you could see the that peer group you could see the last four years of incentives month by month and you get we we sometimes refer to that chart as the panic index. I don't think I've said that externally so you know there's an exclusive but you can see that in 21 22 um there was a massive panic in those properties in May and June and and actually the same has happened this year.

SPEAKER_02 28:16

You know why else why else would those properties and those and those specific types have massive incentives other than that they're uh a bit so it's it's a really key uh indicator of what's happening uh with the peer group yeah I'd say just on that point to those tools we've started adding some external data as well to those um because I think it's really important you know I'm I kind of made the point earlier that we're creating efficiency by having a lot of data in one place but it's not just the data that we're collecting that's important it's pipeline data it's student numbers and so we're starting to add all of that to the tools as well so we've just started adding really straightforward student numbers it's literally just total population of students in a particular area. So as you change the map in the tool it tells you how many students are within that location excluding live at home or commuter students. We're also going to make that a little bit better the next iteration so it will split that by domestic and international and then we'll go one better again by splitting that by UG and PG and but then also integrating pipeline because when you're looking at pricing I think probably one of the things that isn't always considered a conversation is when you're pricing something it's not just about what's happening right now but what you need to plan for in the future. So starting to add you know what which buildings are going to be coming operational in the next 12 months in the next 24 months and eventually we'll get to a five year view hopefully but yeah definitely the the biggest development for us has tackled the biggest barrier which is that ability to analyze quickly and easily.

SPEAKER_01 29:46

I think what that does is it just gives a sense of agility and I think that agility has been missing in the sector and for far too long we get the panic pull because people are like oh it hasn't worked as we wanted it to we're now eight months into our sales cycle and I've got to do something different whereas actually having that at your hand data live is able for people to be able to adjust and make decisions wise decisions based on data that's calculated instead of finger in the air.

SPEAKER_02 30:16

That's what we talk about a lot actually internally it's enabling people to have high quality discussions about what they do next rather than just guessing and hoping it's having that really high quality discussion around well if we do this it will mean that and if we do that it will mean this bringing some of that hopefully to some of our users.

SPEAKER_00 30:34

The elephant in the room is how many of those conversations are about affordability?

SPEAKER_02 30:39

Yeah it's a really good question. I mean you guys and we as well talk about affordability a lot you only need to look at the most recent reviews or not even the most recent but any review that's been left by a student based in London and almost invariably they mention cost in one form or another. But yeah we do speak about it a lot because it is a very real challenge. Last December we did a really good interview with Sky News actually and in that we highlighted you know student numbers have grown more than 4% since 2019 but in that same timeframe HMOs have dropped by potentially 95,000 beds. PBSA has tried to fill that gap there was you know 9,000 new beds built in 2023 but that those two numbers don't marry up but then across all living categories we've got all of these problems of long lead times rising costs of borrowing rising costs of construction rising cost of labour lack of availability of labour regulations all of that is challenging across the sector whether it's an HMO whether it's a PBSA whether it's BTR or whatever it's challenging the ability to build affordable accommodation. I think you know because we've got great data we often get asked oh what's the rental increase that in itself is fraught with problems as a question but as an example over the course of 2023 we think rents depending on the city rose by somewhere between 6 and 14%. You know in a poll of 1700 of our users about 35% said that the cost of living the cost of accommodation was actually having a significant impact on their choice of university. That's not just their choice of where to live but their choice of university. However the conflicting side of that is despite the price rises reviews are also saying that PBSA offers really good value for money. The average value for money score for a UK PBSA is a 4.26 out of five we can't argue with that number but what I would say is that if we then look to now and looking ahead those pressures are still really present and so despite some of the macroeconomic climate softening we still have locations where demand outstrips supply we still have a mismatch which is then compounded by tricky planning processes it being really slow to get a building from concept to build and I think that's a really interesting conundrum that's not going to end quickly. I think probably one of the things that we've seen is that there has been a bit of a slowing down this cycle. That's not to say it's a slow cycle it's more to say that perhaps some of the heightened feeling that happened as a result of pandemic and post-pandemic has calmed down a bit. So we are seeing more considered slightly slower engagement. So it'll be really interesting to see how that then plays forward into rent setting in the the coming cycle moving forward. But overall I would say affordability as a conversation is not going anywhere anytime soon.

SPEAKER_04 33:37

I think it's great to hear you talk empathetically about that as well because it's it's all too easy to bash the investors and the developers and say stop building studios for Chinese students that are you know 350 quid a a week but it's it is it's cost of capital it's cost of build it's you know they're also the operational costs are obviously more than they ever have been so there's a there's a lot that I think we we tend to bash the investors for but I know that you fully understand that it's not just as simple as saying well drop your prices that that just can't happen because you can't build anything for less than 80 grand a key at the moment you know even more than that typically I think when you look at certain cities they definitely price themselves out of students wanting to go there. And that's something that the sector higher education and PBSA is going to have to deal with and also take a bit of responsibility for as well so I think using your data to have a bit of a measured approach to the next three to five years rather than okay what's it looking like this year? I think that's where it's really really important that you stay on top of the data as an operator, developer or investor.

SPEAKER_00 34:43

So crystal ball gains in time what does the future look like for student crowd? What are you developing what are you looking at as a as a business and you know how do you think you will continue to play such a big part in our sector?

SPEAKER_02 34:56

From a data perspective there's a few things that we already have on our agenda but I'll then hand over to Paul for what we're going to do on the decision making side. So from a data perspective we are expanding our locations so we've already expanded into Spain and to the Republic of Ireland and we're just starting to do Germany now as well and then potentially looking at Australia next. So different geographies but then also looking at how we can turn all of that into a more holistic view again within that analytical space. So that's definitely things on the data side and then also looking at other living types so co-living we've just finished so we'll be launching that next month you can imagine that now we've got co-living under our auspices BTR is just a hop skip and a jump away so yeah lots of different things going on data side but Paul you can talk about student decisions.

SPEAKER_03 35:48

Yeah sure so yeah I mean having this having this rich data there was a painful season when we had we were supplying data to the sector that we were not able to get into our decision making tools for students because the sector was so demanding of what it needed but it's been really exciting to develop a lot of filters and features for students to you know there's there's no point saying this is the best property in Manchester if they cannot afford it or if it's in the wrong part of Manchester. So right now you know it's all about filtering based off student needs. We we're going to be evolving that into more of a chat based um feature where perhaps where I often think for a student they've never particularly international students they've never been inside student accommodation. So it's a bit like trying to pick a car when you've never seen a car or been inside one. So we we're going to ask some questions that they might not be considering about the accommodation requirements that they have and then and then filtering down the options because ultimately we think the the experience that a student has in their accommodation can can easily define their their entire university experience. Certainly if they're not having a good time in their accommodation it's very unlikely that they'll be able to thrive on their course and the rest of their their academic experiences. So yeah we think it's really important. I'd also say in terms of evolution we are evolving the tool the tools for the sector more and more specifically for universities and investors and developers um always happy to do a demo as well. That was my only shameless plug. If you fancy a demo we're more than happy to show you um show you those tools.

SPEAKER_01 37:29

Yeah I'd definitely advise it because it is fascinating I think the data that you hold and they have and I don't think you know we can agree more that you're providing a very important service to students and you're providing a very very important service in terms of data to the sector and the sector is much better for it. So thank you for being there. Uh huge thank you to Paul and Julie for joining us today data is such a vital part of what we always talk about on Housed and it's great that you've been allowed to come today to share your insights your trends and what you're seeing. We really appreciate it and I'm pretty sure our listeners would have too do make sure you keep an eye out for any papers and insights from student crowd and of course if you haven't been at a conference when they're presenting do go and watch it because it'll be the best one of the day because you'll get on the spot data you'll get audience interaction and you'll come away going ah I've learned something there today so do make sure you go and check them out. That does bring us to the end of our special summer house sessions. It's been an absolute blast we've had some great guests we've really enjoyed everyone that we've spoken to over our special sessions. Next week we go straight into series two of HALs and we're back to our weekly shared living news insights. We've got a lot to catch up on I'm not sure how we're going to keep Dan quiet but we will do our best to keep it in the 30 minutes and we look forward to seeing you next week when we launch on September the 6th