What will 2025 bring for the shared living sector? We share our predictions and hopes.

A new season of Housed, Sarah, Deenie and Dan share their predictions and hopes for the shared living sector in 2025:

- The Renters’ Rights Bill - what changes will this make in 2025?
- Angela Raynor and her big hopes for building new homes with 1.5 million pledged in their first 5 years of power - What could and should be achieved in this short window? Is building, the solution or is there another way?
- Higher Education troubles and the impact on PBSA, coliving and BTR
- Affordability - will anything change this year?

We are excited to announce a new sponsor for this season, theEword - true experts in digital marketing specifically for the property sector.

We are also delighted that MyStudentHalls are continuing to sponsor the podcast, Mystudenthalls.com - Find your ideal student accommodation across the UK. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Hello and welcome to 2025 and the first episode in the brand new season of How's the Shared Living podcast. I'm Sarah Canning, co-founder and director of the Property Marketing Strategist. I've worked in property for over 20 years including estate agency PropTech, many years in PBSA and BTR.

SPEAKER_05 0:18

I'm Dan Smith from Resi Consultancy. I fell into PBSA about 10 years ago now. I was managing director of Nido Student for several years and then worked in marketplaces before setting up Student Housing Consultancy as a it was then known, and then recently changed the name to Resi Consultancy. I also have an ESG consultancy called Good Management Group. We look after about 25,000 beds, the strategy for them. And more recently, I have taken a stake in an AI firm that will revolutionise real estate management. So yeah, lots going on.

SPEAKER_03 0:48

And I'm Deanie Lee, also co-founder of Property Marketing Strategists with Sarah. I've worked in property for probably over 15 years, and before that I was in education

SPEAKER_04 0:57

and publishing. A brand new season means a This

SPEAKER_01 1:01

episode of Housed, the shared living podcast, is brought to you by the E-Word, digital experts in driving leads and putting people in your places.

SPEAKER_04 1:09

We're delighted to be welcoming the E-Word to our little housed family. I've actually worked with Al and the team there. They're true experts in digital marketing and specialise in property. So they are a great fit for us and they could be a great fit for you. Make sure you drop them a line if you need to put your digital plan in safe hands. And we've loved having Dan and the team at my student halls involved in house. And we're pleased to say they are back for a second season, more from them later. So it couldn't be the beginning of January without a look forward at the year to come. So Dini, Dan and I will be crystal ball gazing and sharing our predictions and hopes for what 2025 will bring the shared living sectors. I'm going to kick off with one that's been rumbling around last year, but we do know for sure we will have certainty about this one very soon. The renter's rights bill. Dini and Dan, what changes do you think this will bring to the sector in 2025? Oh,

SPEAKER_05 2:02

it depends how quickly they get on with things, to be honest with you. I think that it's got the potential to totally change the student accommodation in particular, but also then the rental landscape beyond that. And I say that because ultimately all councils want their student HMO stock back into the market. They want that back as private rented accommodation or for general sale or for social housing. And they want students ideally into PBSA. Now that doesn't always suit the student. We know that. But for the councils, that's what they ultimately want. And that's why you're seeing many cities just approve lots of different PBSAs left, right, and center to ultimately deliver more stocks so that as and when there is an impact from the renter's rights bill, that you will start to see that students will migrate to PBSA and they will be able to afford it because those occupancy levels will have dropped, the revenue levels will have stabilized. And I do think that that will happen. I think it will probably happen later on in Q4, I would say. So from, well, I suppose October, November, December, you'll start to see if the brought in around May time, you will start to see some attrition from that student HMO stock. So that will then precipitate more students needing to go into PBSA. Obviously, more stock will come back to the market too, which may precipitate a bit of a house price drop in some way, shape or form. But the whole thing will be set about because of the fact that student landlords, student HMO landlords currently rely on 51, sometimes 52 weeks of rent. The moment that you bring in any kind of tenancy length constraints that is going to mean that students can leave within sort of 60 days some potentially 30 days notice and they will do like they will give their notice in May to leave in June or they will give their notice in April to leave in May potentially that will definitely have such a big impact on student HMO landlords that it will not be viable because a lot of these student HMO landlords they're not making millions here some of them are big portfolios yes appreciate that but the margins aren't that big they really aren't that big so they're not not just sitting up there in their ivory towers or driving their Lambos around from place to place, collecting rent and cash. Like there's some really good student HMO landlords out there running quite tight ships and the margins really aren't there. So I do think that there will be quite a lot of attrition if that renter's rights bill does come in before May. What do you think, Dina?

SPEAKER_03 4:28

Yeah, I think it's one of the biggest shakeups in terms of kind of how people rent their homes that we've had. And that's going to have a massive impact on on renting I guess but I think one of the shocks I think to the sector is I don't think the general renting public understands these changes and what what's happening and I think we've spoken about that before and that's something that needs to be picked up by all those in the sector to make sure that people really understand what they're doing and but the good thing is to think about is that it does give people that choice and think for PBSA they are going to have to really watch closely about what people want to do around a contract do they want that short kind of academic term contract that PBSA can offer? Or do they want the flexibility of coming and going as and when they please? And I think that'll be really interesting to see how the market adapts and plays to that and what students or renters decide that they want to have access to. So I think it's going to be interesting. I think as most of these things, as we said, it's coming down the line super, super quick. I don't think people are as prepared as maybe they should be. So it's going to be a bit of a scrabble to make the changes that are needed in some places.

SPEAKER_05 5:43

It's just so ambiguous. That's the issue at the moment. It's clear as mud as to exactly what's going to happen. There's a lot of PBSA operators thinking, actually, how much does this apply to us? And we're getting absolutely no guidance from the government. I'd love for them to be really leading and consulting consistently with the sector. They're not. And this is the frustration that we've got. So I would like to see a lot more collaboration on that front. But you're right, Deanie. All of my consultancy work is geared up to the era of flexibility that we're moving into. There's a few more as to affordability, sustainability, et cetera, but flexibility is going to be absolutely key. And I think it's going to be a differentiator for, I think that's where BTR is stealing a march on PBSA as well, not just in the facilities, but in the fact that you could have a six month term. They won't, you know, no one in BTR is going to particularly like me talking about that, but that's where co-living and BTR can definitely come in and take quite a lot of the market by offering that flexibility. So those PBSA operators that jump on board with that because of the Renters' Rights Act showcasing students, hey, You can actually have what you want here. You can quit your contract if you really want. I think that that is going to precipitate quite a few changes in PBSA.

SPEAKER_04 6:51

I think it will create competition. I think we've been talking about it for quite a while that... BTR, co-living, HMOs, university accommodation, PBSA are all competing. And I think this will kind of shine a light on that because renters will want the same playing field, I think. They'll want what everyone else has got. And Dina, I think you're right. I think it will shine a light on those kind of demands, really, for flexible contracts and why do I need to be paying rent when I'm not needed to be a university, for example. There's already an element of flexibility anyway in BTR more so than PBSA, but I think this will be competition. I think in the short term, I think if they do want the changes to begin in the summer, I think there's going to be an element of chaos because everybody that signed a contract will need a new contract. And I'm not sure that landlords and letting agents etc are probably geared up for that as much as they should be that actually if they I think in the long term it will be it will be better but I'm not sure we're going to see that stable kind of landscape in 2025 i think if we return to this topic at the end of this year we might say actually it was a bit chaotic but the next year should be all right

SPEAKER_03 8:10

and i think dan to your point about pbsa sitting thinking it doesn't affect me that's really dangerous ground because if the market landscape is changing people have access to different types of products then it's going to affect your market so i think that is one thing that worries me that pbsa is sitting there thinking oh we're all right we're exempt it's like but the market is changing and you've got to be in that market.

SPEAKER_05 8:33

You don't want to rely on, just look at Ireland, you do not want to rely on the government to mandate term sessions and tenancy lengths because that will be detrimental to PBSA operators. And I think there's various reasons for why those operators in Ireland did mandate 51 weeks and then the government stepped in and said, no, no, you have to say, you have to have 40 week contracts and then people can extend because that's what students want. All of this is geared up around giving people what they want whether you're btr whether you're pbsa if your students do want to quit after 40 weeks or whatever it might be, you have to be prepared for that. That is what they want. You have to give the people what they want. And I know that PBSA is going to be very slow to move around to moving from 51 weeks down to 40 weeks or possibly splitting into different tenancy lengths or semesters or whatever it might be. That is clear. But it will come with... occupancy challenges so i would expect to see shorter term sessions in the likes of nottingham in leeds in sheffield and coventry where we already see them but also further on into bristol into glasgow into various other locations where that supply is really creeping up and the university numbers are going up but not by that much then yeah i would expect to see more flexibility because the competition will get tougher and the renters rights act whilst it will You know, there will be some attrition from the student housing market in general. I would expect that, you know, there is enough pipeline in most of these cities with PBSA for it to pick up some of the slack. And it won't be that all student HMO landlords step out of the sector. I'm speaking to several investors at the moment, big institutional investors who are looking at buying up swathes of student HMO homes. portfolios across the UK. And there are some really good investors and developers willing to do that, make a sustainability play on a lot of these student HMO stock, because you effectively, if you have enough student HMO in one city, you can run it almost as a decentralized PBSA. I've seen that done before in Loughborough particularly well, and I think that that will happen across the city too. So yeah. Ultimately, it will depend what happens with student numbers this year as to how things go. But I would expect some attrition from student HMO and then, you know, hopefully a bit of professionalisation across more of that student HMO market with more institutional capital coming in as well.

SPEAKER_04 11:03

Great. So the next big topic that could be On the horizon in 2025 is obviously Angela Rayner and the government have stated big claims for building new homes. So they want, you know, I think 1.5 million pledged in the first five years of power. So 2025 will be the first of those full years. What do we think could be achieved in this short window in the next 12 months? I mean, there's lots of things relying on it, such as reforming planning processes, such as building on brown land, high interest rate It's land banking, social housing. Yeah, where do we start? What's actually going to happen in the next 12 months? Deanie?

SPEAKER_03 11:43

So I think it's like a lot of things. We don't really have the detail of the how. Okay, we do know that there's going to be 300 new planning officers, but I spoke to a family member over the Christmas break who is a planning officer and said, well, Is that going to help? And I think he worked out that over however many local authorities there are, that's like 1.5 people. And he's already got a vacancy already. So actually, it's not going to make any difference to actually the planning system at all. And I guess it is, you know, there is obviously talk about building on brown land, finding the right optimum land that isn't greenbelt, which is all right. But unless there's actually a way to make the change in the planning process I can't see how that's going to happen and I think when I did speak to this family member they were very much like it'll just be pushed through but he's worried about that was this going to be the wrong things in the wrong places and the wrong decisions being made because the wrong people are pushing the wrong things through so I think again it's a great aspiration it's probably what we need I think we do need to be looking at the green belt and what is optimum green belt and what isn't. And, you know, I live in Somerset. I'm surrounded by beautiful arable fields. A lot of that has been built on, but it's built on the outskirts and the edges. So actually it doesn't make a principle different to people's outlook because they're still looking on these green fields. I think there is green belt lands that can be used that isn't going to have a major impact. And there's other lands that is in the middle of housing estates anyway, that, is the optimum sites to be built on. So I think it's that step needs to be done and that needs to be done with communication with local people so that actually people understand that we've all got to make compromises here so we get rid of this NIMBYism that, you know, it's either this beautiful land over here or it's this block of land that, OK, five or six houses overlook it, but would you rather get rid of that and lose this or not? And I think it's those conversations that we need to have around the Greenbelt. So I think it's a high... order we don't have the detail I hope they do achieve it but they really need to unblock some things in planning departments to really make it happen because I don't see that planning authorities are really seeing how they can make this happen and what differences they can make with the current policies in place.

SPEAKER_05 14:04

I agree. 300 planners is a complete drop in the ocean. That will be swallowed up. That could be swallowed up by two local authorities, to be completely honest with you. I just think there's so much to run at here. I think they're going to have to bulldozer it through, you know, quite literally. I know that they have to build around 350,000 odd homes a year to make that work properly. And currently we're building around 200,000. So that is a big shortfall. Something has to change and it has to be pretty drastic. So they are going to have to literally rewrite the rule book on the planning regime and local authorities are going to ultimately need to staff up and I can see there being some serious issues with only 300 people and, you know, lack of resources already. You know, 300 extra planners and, you know, overstretched planning authorities as it is. And then the way that, you know, local councillors are involved, it's not conducive to quick. I think that's the main issue that I've got. That speed isn't going to be there, especially not in the first year. So come the end of this year, will we hit 370,000 homes? No, I'd be absolutely amazed if we did, because you need a root and branch reform of the planning regime. And that's going to take time. I would like to think that the government wouldn't do too much consultation over that, because I do think these houses just need to be built. And you're right, there needs to be, we need to stop the nimbyism, not in my backyard. That's the nimby term. And And I think that everybody has to realize that we have a housing crisis. We have a housing shortage. And therefore, the only way to alleviate that is to build more homes, which, yes, can, you know, in certain areas drop property prices. But I'm in Bicester at the moment, and we are one of the fastest growing towns in the UK. And all of the new estates building are propping up the house prices of all of the other slightly older houses, too. So it doesn't necessarily mean that you build more houses and the housing prices drop. This is more about supply and quantity and actually having sufficient housing for the number of people there this is less of an affordability play overall but even if you do get rid of all of the barriers to planning you still have resource constraints the construction industry has got shortages in you know skilled labor in materials and that's going to hit you know that's going to really hinder any kind of housing targets ultimately we don't really have the infrastructure in place either and that's thinking about hospitals schools you know doctors etc and any other kind of healthcare facilities so we are going to have to ride roughshod over any kind of impacts like that and you know there will be some teething problems I've got no doubt and then of course that local opposition is going to be pretty vocal and you know you can expect there to be some very very unhappy local residents when you're building on greenbelt land or if you're just building pretty much next door to someone that thought that they weren't going to have any properties built on land in and around them, or the stress of the impact of new estates being built, that's going to have a really detrimental effect. I think that is going to be a real issue for the government moving into the next election, to be completely honest. So I think planning and house building has got the potential to really disturb the government's massive majority at the moment. So yeah, loads to consider. I don't think they'll hit the target this year. If they can reform the planning regime well enough, which means that they can effectively bulldoze on Greenbelt land and get rid of any kind of issues around local objections, then great, they'll hit those targets, no problem at all. But I'm yet to see a government commit to and then actually deliver planning reform in any way, shape or form.

SPEAKER_04 17:54

Yeah, I read that so much of houses being built is reliant on the big house builders, but they don't want to flood the market because it pushes prices down. So just because the government say that they want houses to be built. That doesn't mean that people are going to magically start building them. So I don't know if it's going to happen, but I don't necessarily think the growth in new homes needs to come from building. There's loads of derelict buildings and I know that they've talked about that as well. There's people that are land banking, you know, that's got to change if people, you know, because the land's there in a lot of cases and it received permission to be built on and then nobody's building on it because the market conditions aren't right. So, you know, that needs to change. And I think, you know, at the very, very heart of our society, we've got a huge problem with social housing. We have got a homeless issue. And I'm not necessarily talking about people living on the streets. I'm talking about people that are being housed in hotels that are being housed in bedsits that are living in substandard accommodation. So I don't know that the priority in the next year should be on building new houses. I kind of feel that it should be focused on making lives better for people that need homes who are living in substandard accommodation and then if you can fix the bottom then surely it makes the other parts of the ladder in housing easier because otherwise you're just kind of moving middle class people around different towns and different homes really rather than creating a home for people that can start their their lives really in a safe secure warm home

SPEAKER_05 19:35

you know Sarah I know you've got some thoughts about later living and the opportunities there?

SPEAKER_04 19:39

Yeah, I think we know that older people have got loads of empty rooms in their houses, but the current social care and inheritance tax rules makes it makes old people really, really scared to give up their homes. So again, it's not necessarily about building. The homes are there. The rooms are there, literally. They already exist. They just need to be redistributed to the people that need them and want them. I don't think that's a 2025 solution.

SPEAKER_05 20:09

Sadly not. It's a generational shift, that. And I think it's something that you see a lot in Europe as well. And I would like to see more downsizing. I'd like to see more people using later living rental operators, Birch Grove, Honor Barrett's done quite a lot on that in the past and to sort of communicate that. And I do think that that is something that we do need to be thinking about as well, whether that's a marginal gain or not, or that would really have a material impact on the housing crisis. I'm not sure, but we do need to think rather than just building and that's the solution to everything, what can be done in terms of repurposing, getting rid of all of those empty rooms, helping people to downsize, changing the messaging around that and that will come with time but yeah you're right 2025 that's that's not going to happen.

SPEAKER_04 20:54

No I've got family members who are in their 80s they're in and out of hospital they live in a two-bedroom apartment and they won't move being in a care home is absolutely the right thing for them but they are a couple they want to be together and that's not always guaranteed if you're moving into care and you know the money that they would make from selling their flat I think it would give them about two years each in a care home before that That money would go and they don't want to lose that money. They want to leave that money to their children and their grandchildren. So they're reliant on carers and Meals on Wheels and they're in and out of hospital all the time. And it's because they don't want that money to be absorbed. And, you know, it's awful. But that is being repeated in probably, you know, 50% of families. You know, the population is older and, you know, we're keeping people... alive longer, you know, so this is, you know, this is a huge, huge problem. It's, you know, it's a topic for a whole other podcast, I think. So let's take a break and hear from our sponsor.

SPEAKER_00 22:01

Season three of Housed, sponsored by mystudenthalls.com. Let's find your place.

SPEAKER_04 22:09

Thanks again so much to my student halls for supporting us for a second season. We are so happy the lovely listeners of Housed are flocking to get their properties listed with you. I told you they were a sensible lot. So on to our next prediction for 2025. Higher education. We are conscious that we talk about higher education a lot. Sometimes I feel like it's not our lane to veer into. But because a lot of what we talk about is student accommodation, it's only right that HE impacts that. But it It doesn't just impact PBSA, as we've discussed. There are students living in co-living and BTR, of course. And we now know that there are voluntary redundancies as well as forced redundancies in universities. They are taking away some courses, fewer staff, lack of affordable accommodation. It could see less students going to university in 2025. We're not seeing those stats yet. In fact, 2024 saw a record number of 18-year-olds accepting a place at university. However, with an increasing number of domestic students being from disadvantaged Dan, you look terrified, but I'm going to pick on you. What

SPEAKER_05 23:24

are your thoughts? Well, I'm pretty worried about the state of university finances in particular. I think the issue that we've got is that there is no solution there. You know, the solution that's been put forward by the government to raise tuition fees by 250 quid, that has absolutely no impact whatsoever. And even if they follow, if there's an inflationary uplift every year to those tuition fees, we are going to price students out of going to university first and foremost, just with the student loan costs, with those tuition fee costs, et cetera. So that's definitely going to start having an impact. And students are already questioning the value of universities. I wonder whether the government will let a university or two go to the wall in 2025. I think we're quite close to seeing that potentially having had a look at the books of a lot of different universities across the country. Now, their reports are a year out of date, typically, and the ones that still haven't produced theirs for last year, they're the ones that I would be particularly worried about. But all you have to do is go onto Google and search university redundancies, click on news, and you'll start to see those universities that are in a bit of trouble. And by trouble, it's varying degrees. There are some that are reasonably sound. They're just trying to get their ship in order, get their house in order, to mix metaphors. but there are some that could be teetering on the edge. And, you know, no, I'm not saying that any of these universities are in dire straits, but the ones that come up as the most recent news stories are University of Plymouth, Dundee, Bournemouth, Edinburgh, Sussex, East Anglia, Sheffield, Cardiff. These are great universities. And for them all to be making redundancies and not thriving, there is something wrong with the sector completely. What the government have done is kick the can down the road quite deliberately, because I think there needs to be an element of government support for universities. And also there needs to be some increase in tuition fees, further increase in tuition fees that should be mitigated by lengthening the amount of time that you can have a student loan and the interest rate. And I think that needs to be completely looked at and potentially fully nationalized. And I do think we need to make sure that students feel like they are getting that value for money. how quickly that will happen. I think the government will probably let a university go to the wall or have a university in particular say, look, we are just about to go. You have to step in. There has to be a forced merger because we cannot have that mistrust of universities in the UK and the higher education sector in the UK. If our international reputation dips because we're not funding it well enough, then it will lose huge numbers of international students in particular. And people, domestic students will question, even further, whether it's actually worth them going to university at all. So it wouldn't have been popular for the government to say, hey, look, we're going to step in and prop up universities here. We're going to do some government funding and we're also going to raise tuition fees. That would have been pretty catastrophic to their chances in the election. And I think that it will be very difficult for them to push anything through beyond. So what they're doing right now is saying, get your houses in order. Stop giving such ridiculous pension contributions. There's no wonder that these academics are lifers and that they move up through the ranks. And that's not going to be popular with a lot of my university clients. We've got a lot of university clients at Resi Consultancy and I'll freely talk to them about the exorbitant pension contributions that are being made into their pension pots. And I think that that has to be one of the focuses for the government on any kind of review into universities and higher education. But overall, you've got to run leaner. We've got to make sure that we're extracting from a very little expense. to be an increase for the tier two, tier three universities. So I think they're the ones to watch. Russell Group and the tier ones, I wouldn't be too worried about, although there's a few that have put their hands up and said, hey, look, this isn't easy for us. The likes of York last year, where they dropped their grade boundaries for international students just to try and get more international students in their early doors. I can see that happening more and more, but it's just going to be a really tough year for universities and they need to continue to get their houses in order. And there may be one that goes to the wall or two or three, who knows, or enforced mergers this year. I think this year will be absolutely pivotal for it. So watch this space. I'm pretty worried about it, to be completely honest. And there are some cities that will be heavily impacted.

SPEAKER_04 28:22

I think the previous government did so much damage on international students and making them feel so unwelcome. And I don't think that the narrative around migration is helping. I think the general public have a really hard time understanding the difference between migration and illegal immigration. And the press isn't helping that. And the narrative about the numbers constantly, you know, how many migrants we've had. And I think that just paints a really, really negative picture and a very hostile narrative around the UK as somewhere for people from abroad to come and live. You know, I think Brexit is the start of that. We have to strip out international student numbers. Yeah, absolutely. And as we discussed a few weeks ago, yeah and that they they make a huge number of migrants but we're not seeing the positive stories about what international students bring and the careers and the vocations that they contribute to it's you know it's really really really problematic and will I do I think that that's going to change in 2025 no I don't I think the damage has already been made and I don't think you know that the government aren't talking about this you know it wasn't there's nothing kind of in any manifesto about the universities so are they aware that it's such a problem do they care i don't know so i'm i'm not sure we're going to see a huge amount of difference or legislation or anything like that in the year and i do think that the headline numbers of students don't always tell the full picture

SPEAKER_03 30:01

i agree dan i think we're likely to see a university fail this year I think, you know, I've spoken to a couple of people working at universities and many of them are going through restructures and reorganizations right now. But I think the fundamental issue is that we've got a broken system and a system that was designed for a different world in a different place that no longer works and it needs a complete overhaul and that's not going to happen that isn't my prediction because I don't think that's going to happen and I think as a consequence we are going to continue to have a system that doesn't work and I think back to the whole planning conversation as you were both talking what I was reflecting on is that all these things they're all interconnected you can't take education you can't take housing you can't take the economy you can't take the NHS and fix them in isolation because they're all interconnected you know they're all integrated with migration they're all interconnected with everything and i think the problem with how things are run is that everything's about five years all we care is about how do we make incremental differences in five years and that never ever ever fixes broken systems so that's a bit pessimistic but i don't have much hope that we're gonna see we're gonna see much change

SPEAKER_05 31:13

No, I don't think we'll see any change from the government. I think we'll see they are governing by headlines with the universities because they know that they can't step in at the moment. It will have to be something that precipitates it and that will have to be a university going bust or getting so close to going bust that they have to step in and enforce a merger or whatever it might be. I worry as to which one it will be. That's the main thing. It's not a case of if, it's more when.

SPEAKER_03 31:39

The other thing as well that I was chatting to my children about only yesterday and they're nowhere near university age they're kind of 11 and 8 and they were talking about why they'd go to university whether they'd go to university and I think one of the things that we're not talking about is actually I think In terms of when I went to university, the skills that we need are so much greater and more invested and needs that university education than I think that our generation did. And yet, I don't think it's being sold like that. I think there is a whole myriad of new skills that we as a country need and we as a sector need. And I don't know if that's really actually being communicated to the next generation of students about what it is that we need for our next our next workforce i think it's starting

SPEAKER_05 32:29

to get there i think because i think i think apprenticeships are actually really starting to get their degree apprenticeships and and i i think about lou who who works with with us at resi consultancy her son is doing a degree apprenticeship in construction and development and he's earning good money and getting a degree alongside it yes it will take him you know four or five years to get his degree but he's earning good money alongside that anyway And and so I think that that is definitely going to there's going to be more and more of that because they're very much a middle class family. And, you know, Lou's husband, AJ, has worked in the sector for PBSA sector for years. I think that that is going to be. a real problem for universities in dealing with an increasing number of of degree apprenticeships and it's something that needs to be seen as an opportunity rather than at the moment a bit of a hindrance but pbsa needs to be very aware that if that number increases well do they need to live at home or sorry do they need accommodation no not necessarily and lose sun is living at home and doing it and i do think that that is something that we do need to be mindful of that coming down the tracks potentially and changing the way that universities are structured so

SPEAKER_03 33:43

say If you blur the lines of degrees and apprenticeships, that doesn't mean you can't go away to university and do a degree apprenticeship and move away from home. But I think it's, we've got to change the way we see education. And I think that needs to happen quite quickly. And that's hindering, basically.

SPEAKER_05 34:00

Do you shorten degrees to two years? Like I'm hearing a lot of, it was, I think it was Joss talking about that. Joss from BODUS talking about, you know, well, actually just shorten it to two years, potentially. I don't disagree with it. I think that there's an opportunity to shorten degrees, in which case it becomes a lot more affordable. But then do you create that two-tier system of people that did the two years and people that do the three years or... I think that's where we need to be quite careful as to how we do structure higher education moving forward. But yeah, like I said, the government don't seem to be doing a huge amount at the moment. It's a can to kick down the road a little bit further. I would expect more movement in Q4 2025, but it could be precipitated a little bit sooner by some, you know, pretty deep rooted financial issues at some universities.

SPEAKER_04 34:46

Okay, thanks guys. And our last topic for consideration for 2025, it wouldn't be a housed podcast if we weren't talking about affordability. I know we've already covered it in some of our other topics and I'll kick this one off. I don't think anything's going to change. I don't think we're going to see prices reducing. I mean, in student accommodation, the prices are already set. So that's not going to change. Are we going to see a mass drop towards the end of the season? I don't think so. I think the price rises were quite modest this year. So I don't think anyone's gone completely crazy. I think in the wider rental market, there is still so much demand that you know there's no need for the prices to come down as far as as i can see so no is the answer i don't think that we're going to see a shift in prices in 2025 no me

SPEAKER_05 35:37

me neither i think it was a relatively modest rise this year i'd say probably an average of about three to four percent four percent you know on the on the higher end there year on year i do think that there will be some discounting towards the end of the year i don't think the international number will come through in the droves that we were hoping for. There's some stress in the Chinese market already, as in some serious stress and some concern from some of the major agents, marketplaces and UK universities as to what those Chinese numbers in particular are going to look like. We're also pricing out a lot of Indian students who have around£50 per week less to spend. So I think my advice to my clients is to load up as much as you can on those rebookers. There has to be good incentive there look after the students as best as you possibly can this isn't rocket science but i'm trying to get people to incentivize to front load their booking cycle because if you rely on it you know a big clearing that's not going to happen you know we've already seen that and if you are looking for international student numbers later in the market they may not be there in particular the chinese market they were very skittish last year and spread very thinly because partly they're looking at btr as well so pbsa needs to be quite mindful of that that in particular. building I do think that there could be some new developments in affordability but I think that they are not going to come in for 2025 I think that will come further down the line so it's still going to be very difficult to manage those expectations between land buyers and you know and sellers and also then the investors and the returns that they've seen in previous years compared to what they can currently get but this isn't a case of you know investor bashing far from it you The margins just aren't there. The returns just aren't there compared to what they were even two, three years ago. I do think that we need to be mindful of the fact that we have to get things moving. And so I think that there needs to be a recalibration of those expectations, in particular from land buyers. Those construction costs are creeping up even further. So that is going to be pretty difficult. But there are some things that are going to make it easier and more affordable to run student accommodation. So I think those operating costs will start to come down somewhat in 2025.

SPEAKER_03 37:58

I'm going to keep it short because I don't think anything will change this year. And I think the only time we really see affordability across property in general is when Angela Rainer actually starts to build 1.5 million new homes, which, as we already said, is tricky and it's going to take time. So I think it's going to be a good two, three, four years before we actually see affordability. any shifts in affordability.

SPEAKER_04 38:20

Great. Thank you. Well, that bit was short and sweet. It's not usually said about any of our topics. So well done, guys. We'll have to listen back to this episode at the end of 2025 and see if we were right with any of our guesses about what the year will hold. In the meantime, please get in touch and engage with our LinkedIn posts on this topic, as we'd love to hear about whether you agree or disagree with us or if you've got any other ideas about the year to come. Thank you to the E-Word for becoming our headline sponsor for the season. Your support is hugely appreciated Make sure you tune in next week for some key insight from Marielle Rubinstein at the E-Word. She'll be lifting the lid on what your customers are actually doing online. And of course, thank you to our friends at My Student Rules for joining us as a sponsor once again. Happy New Year to you all. And we will be next week for another new episode.