Housed: The Shared Living Podcast
Sarah Canning and Deenie Lee of The Property Marketing Strategists have teamed up with Daniel Smith of Student Housing Consultancy to discuss the latest news, views and insights in the shared living sector.
Each episode they will be delving into a wide variety of subjects and asking the questions which aren't often asked.
This podcast is a must for anyone working in Student Accommodation, BTR, Co-Living, Operational Real Estate or Shared Living.
Housed: The Shared Living Podcast
Latest Impacts For Universities and PBSA, The Building Safety Act Process, Viable Options For Later Living, The Coliving vs Studio BTR Terminology Debate PLUS Ask The Expert Feature on the Renters' Rights Bill
Sarah, Dan and Deenie are back for episode 65, this week's episode covers:
How UAE student restrictions are sending shockwaves through the UK university system. Several institutions falling outside the global top 200 rankings—including UCLan, City University, and Heriot-Watt—now face losing hundreds of international students who provide essential income. With 61% of UK universities falling in rankings this year, the panel explores what this means for PBSA operators and whether other countries might follow the UAE's lead, potentially creating a dangerous two-tier system in higher education.
The conversation shifts to the Building Safety Regulator inquiry launched by the House of Lords Committee, accepting evidence until August 31st. The panel highlights concerns about transparency, consistency, and the far-reaching impact of regulatory delays on the entire construction supply chain. As one panelist notes, "It's impacting the whole supply chain of the supply chain of the construction industry."
We also question whether stamp duty exemptions for empty nesters would meaningfully address housing market stagnation. The discussion reveals a more complex picture where downsizers seek appropriate housing options that maintain their quality of life—particularly access to gardens that keep them "young and active"—rather than simply reduced tax burdens. This illuminates a significant gap in the market for thoughtfully designed later living options that truly meet seniors' needs.
The podcast features an exclusive update on the Renters' Rights Bill from Holly Jordan-Wright of Howard Kennedy, who clarifies that while fixed-term tenancies will indeed be abolished without exception, PBSA will transition to common law tenancies outside much of the bill's remit—provided operators sign up to the national code for landlords. Implementation is now expected in late 2025 or 2026, giving operators more time to prepare.
Whether you're a PBSA operator concerned about international student numbers, a BTR developer questioning the definition of co-living, or a later living provider seeking to understand what downsizers truly want, this episode provides essential insights for navigating the ever-evolving shared living landscape.
Thank you to our season four sponsors:
MyStudentHalls - Find your ideal student accommodation across the UK.
Utopi - The smart building platform helping real estate owners protect the value of their assets.
Washstation - Leading provider of laundry solutions for Communal and Campus living throughout the UK and Ireland.
Hello everyone and welcome back to Housed, the shared living podcast. This is the ninth episode in season four and it's episode 65 overall. So happy birthday, I guess, to Housed. I was looking up what 65 meant, like if you went to a 65th wedding anniversary. What is it? And apparently it's blue, but it could be a blue diamond or a blue sapphire. So you know, let's, let's take that if that's what 65 means. But honestly, we're so grateful to have you all with us every week as we update you with the latest news, views and opinions in the world of shared living.
Speaker 3:I'm sarah canning, from the property marketing strategist I'm dan smith from resi consultancy and I'm deanie lee from the property marketingists.
Speaker 1:Now let's hear a word from our headline sponsor.
Speaker 4:Season four of Housed is sponsored by mystudenthallscom.
Speaker 3:List your properties, commission free and reach thousands of students searching for their university home.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much to Dan and the team from my Student Halls who have been supporting Housed since the beginning. We love working with him and the team and they're so helpful, especially at this time of year when student accommodation operators might be wanting to make changes and up list all of their new properties and new rooms. So please do get in touch if you still have rooms available that you need my student halls to list. And also a huge thank you to our brand new sponsors, wash Station Station and Utopi. More from them later.
Speaker 1:Hopefully you listened to our exclusive discussion with Jonathan Burridge from Utopi last week, but if you didn't, make sure you listen back to that episode and the guests keep on coming, later in this episode we've got another Ask the Experts session with Holly from Howard Kennedy, who will be updating you all about the renter's rights bill. Stay tuned for that. Who will be updating you all about the renter's rights bill? Stay tuned for that. We now have a huge backlog of 64 episodes with over 16,000 downloads from you lovely listeners, including over 1,000 in the last few weeks alone. So thank you so much. But if you are curious about any of our topics we're discussing today or any previous episodes. Search on your podcast channel of choice for more debate and insight and, as always, let us know what you want to hear more about and continue to send us your interesting articles and tag us in linkedin posts if you think we should also be covering it on housed. So what have we been seeing in the news this past week?
Speaker 2:dad, I'll go to you first well, obviously we had jonathan from Utopia on, so we've missed out on a little bit of news. Now what we've seen is, obviously, united made a bid for Empiric, which I think is a very interesting play and I think it shows just how difficult it is to actually build right now. And so acquiring, getting scale, getting scale by acquiring, is the best way to best way to increase your bed count. Then we've seen the united arab emirates take a call which has kind of been it had been talked about before and it had been. You know, it's been used in various guises. So what they're saying is that if you're a student in the uae, you need to go to a credible university that is one of the top ranked in the world.
Speaker 2:And for the UK, the issue that you have there is that some of our universities that take a huge number of UAE students do not fall within this ranking threshold. So the likes of UCLan, city, university of London, heriot-watt University, anglia, ruskin, uwe, surrey, sussex, coventry they fall outside the top 200. And that's going to mean that they can't take students from the UAE. So you know, for a university like UCLan, that means that they'll be taking what is it? 455, I can see here on a sheet that I've put on LinkedIn 455 less students. That is definitely going to impact PBSA in some way shape or form. At City University 225 students, heriot-watt 180, anglia Ruskin 145. And these are international students that will be taking PBSA. I would have thought in the first instance.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, that's going to to have a bit of an impact and I think there's a bit of a confusion or fury around how they're getting those rankings. Are they using QS? Are they using THE times higher education complete university guide? There's plenty of other rankings that could be used, but, yeah, very confusing and rankings are always very unpopular, in particular with the higher education sector.
Speaker 2:If you are on the wrong side of them and your rankings are falling, then it can really spell temporary disaster at the very least. Just look at Nottingham last year and the moment that Nottingham fell out of the top 100, there was a serious issue for applications. Because there is a flight to quality, that top 100 ranking really carries a lot of weight. So, yeah, that was quite an interesting move from the UAE. I don't know if you've got any thoughts on that, sarah. My concern or Dini, my concern is that if this spreads officially to other ministries of education, say China or India, they mandate that their students travelling abroad have to go to top. You know 100, 200, 300 universities. That could put a lot of tier two universities in a spot of bother. What did you think about that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I agree with you, dan. At first I was thinking oh well, that's great news for the top 200 universities, because it probably won't signify that those students from the UAE won't come to the UK. They will just choose different universities. So the ones in the top 200 will benefit, whereas the ones outside of the 200, you know, will. Obviously that would be a negative impact for them. But yeah, as you, as you were talking, the penny was kind of dropping that other countries might do this as well. And I think we've talked quite considerably and we've heard at lots of events and panel discussions that those universities who are already in financial difficulty are generally going to be the ones sitting outside of these rankings, which means if they're having less international students, it's just going to be a self-perpetuating cycle and you know it's not going to make it any better. So maybe this will accelerate. Things like merging of universities you know that we have heard people talking about in the past- yeah, that was my worry.
Speaker 3:Is that actually, you know how aware are the government of this? You know they've already not really looking at the risks of less international students coming to UK and their impact on higher education. This is another impact on higher education, obviously on PBSA, but impact on higher education. This is another impact on higher education, obviously on PBSA, but also on higher education. And it's just so many universities reliant on international students and if this spreads to other countries deciding actually that they going to kind of put those kinds of restrictions on their students, then another risk to higher education and then being able to fund education for domestic students.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is one we will keep an eye on, that's for sure. One piece of news that I've been aware of is the House of Lords Committee has launched an inquiry into the building safety regulator. The deadline for submitting evidence is the 31st of August. So if you do have views on this, now is your chance, 31st of August. So if you do have views on this, now is your chance. There's 14 questions that have been posed and the committee is asking for evidence from industry, specialists, councils, residents and safety experts.
Speaker 1:You know we've heard concerns for the last couple of years really, that the framework isn't transparent enough, that the regulator is inconsistent, causing confusion, delays and concerns about Gateway 2 being fit for purpose, and I think you know we were kind of thinking of that, probably in isolation, to be fair, of the delays on the actual buildings. But talking with Jonathan last week from Utopia, it made me realise that it's impacting the whole supply chain. So you know people like Utopia, or interior designers, or architects, contractors, you know they're banking on their involvement in these buildings and then when these buildings are being delayed, then that's impacting the whole supply chain of the supply chain of the construction industry. So it has far, far reaching impacts. What are you both hearing or hoping that comes out of this inquiry?
Speaker 2:what? What are you both hearing or hoping that comes out of this inquiry? I got sent that a lot last week, people saying can you please put this out there, talk about it on housed, get it out on linkedin, because everybody's got the opportunity to get feedback now. The building safety act is important. It's obviously in the wake of grenfell. It originally felt like I know it took a while to to, you know, come to fruition, but it felt like a bit of a knee-jerk reaction with not much consultation, with in the midst of a housing crisis, not much consultation with developers or investors in particular. Now this is our opportunity to really have our say.
Speaker 2:So there is a sort of survey where you can have your say. It was Bhavini Patel from Howard Kennedy who was saying like this is a really important piece of legislation. It has to. You know it's been brought in for good reason. It is just not very well executed, in my opinion, and I think that's the problem that everybody's talking about Gateway to feedback is taking. You know it's taking nine months. It's taking more than that in places and it's too stringent and I think that's where we really need to, you know, loosen it, but making sure that it's still credible and it's having the desired effect of improving the safety standards of development and housing construction across the UK in particular. So definite opportunity for everyone to have their say across the shared living sector, and it's really important that they do so. We'll put a link to the survey on one of our LinkedIn posts so that you can go and give your feedback as you see fit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I totally agree with everything you've both said and I think it's absolutely it needs to be done. I think if the government want to build more homes, they need to stop these delays and I guess that kind of review has come to to help them break those blockages that are causing that, of which this is one of them, with the the kind of immense delays that it's causing. So, yeah, as you both said, I think it's really important that where people are having issues are aware of where that is going wrong, that it's time to have a say and hopefully I think they're expecting kind of the outcome of it to be in the autumn and actually we can see some traction at the end of this year and start to see things move forward.
Speaker 1:Again. We will keep you all up to date with that. We are now going to take a break to hear from Wash Station.
Speaker 4:Wash Station proudly sponsor this episode of Housed. We provide best-in-class laundry solutions that complement your buildings. Wash Station smart, green, clean.
Speaker 1:So, dan, what other news have you been seeing this week? So?
Speaker 2:segueing on from the previous chat around the UAE is the latest rankings from QS. That's Quacarelli-Simmons I'm pretty sure I've said that wrong, but they are effectively a company that compiles the rankings for universities. They do this with a survey of about 100,000 academics, asking them to explain why they think other universities are credible and how they would rank them amongst a load of other scores. Things like ESG is now included, resident satisfaction surveys, those kind of things like they're trying to make it more to bring the university sector and the HE sector along with the rankings, because traditionally most academics and institute university they have not liked the ranking system. They feel like it is effectively a club for the top ranked to hoover up as many students as they possibly can and forget about the sort of tier two, tier three universities, as it were. Now, what we've seen for this year so I think that's actually for the 2026. So yeah, for 2026 is that in the UK, 61% of UK universities fell in the rankings this year. That's up from 57% last year. So the direction of travel is not particularly good. That is not a trend that we want to be continuing, but I just don't see that there is any other alternative because other global universities are getting incredibly competitive and I think we are woefully underfunded as a sector.
Speaker 2:The government hasn't supported higher education and that's the Conservatives and the more recent and the Labour government as well, and so I think we're on a bit of a hiding to nothing there. But we do have some success stories. Some universities maintained their rankings, which is great, and two universities in particular. They improved their rankings and they are now back in the top 100. And everybody in Nottingham and Sheffield will be breathing a sigh of relief every PBSA operator, btr operator because University of Nottingham and the University of Sheffield are now back into the top 100. I think Nottingham's 97 and Sheffield is 92. So great result for them. I know Daniel Capewell from University of Sheffield was very pleased with that, as he rightly should be, because it will have a knock-on effect, probably for this year in terms of improved clearing numbers and international applications, and certainly for next year, because exactly the same thing will happen that early preparation Chinese students, indian students in particular really focused on that top 100. And I think that is a worry for universities that are outside that top 100. And it is a real boost for anyone who is in it.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I think there were a lot of academics, a lot of people at universities, were saying the rankings are crap, like they are. It's a survey of other academics, it's a bit of a you know old boys club, old boys network kind of thing, and they aren't really relevant. Right, that's, that's the you know academic view of it. For students they're totally relevant, and so I think we need to get our heads around the fact that rankings are used by students across the world to refine which university and which course they want to go for, based on the quality of that institution, and by quality. That's the key word there. All those metrics that come into play there's the survey, there's the you know esg metrics, there's the graduate outcomes, there's the employability, etc. So a lot of that is factored in in various different ratios and you can have a have a look at that on the qs website.
Speaker 2:Um I, I agree, um I I just don't think we're ready for it. We don't have enough, uh, rental properties in the later living sector. We don't have enough alternatives to actually being able to either downsize or sell the family home, and that's where it becomes an emotional decision. And I think that we've got we've got a generation of homeowners that have absolutely cashed in. They have bought at the perfect time in terms of their houses and you know they would be able to sell up and get the housing market moving but also then uh, you know release a huge amount of equity from those properties. So I do think that this is something that should be considered, but with no viable alternative, or not enough viable alternatives, and that sort of emotional shift away from. I must own my own home and this is the family home. Even though we've got four spare bedrooms now, we don't want to downsize.
Speaker 2:Well, it's more and more that I see my friends' parents kind of being forced into that.
Speaker 2:You know it's either well, you go into care or you have you know pretty much full-time carers or you need wardened accommodation, and I think that's where it gets really difficult to discuss that with your parents.
Speaker 2:I'm really lucky my parents are incredibly open about that kind of thing and I mean my brother and I jokingly put sort of coloured stickers on things that we like around the house just so that when they're gone we can distribute them. So they're quite open and transparent. In that way they know that they will look to move to ward and accommodation. My granddad would also like that as well moved into ward and accommodation and then into a care home, and I just think we need to get much better at talking about the alternatives to an older generation that are probably clinging onto their housing and you know, at a time when there is such a housing shortage, we heard on a Barrett on our podcast talk about how much it would free up the housing market if you just got older generations to rent, get them to understand later living, and I don't think we're there yet. I think we've got a way to go in terms of the PR and the comms around that 60% of UK universities fell in the global rankings.
Speaker 3:that's over half of them aren't doing as well, and higher education is one of our biggest exports as a country and the thing that is propping it up is international students, which obviously look very closely at these types of rankings. And and it's just resource, isn't it? I think if universities are trying to struggle for a resource, they haven't got the funding to do what they want to do, then things are going to suffer. You know you can't do everything with a finite amount of money, and so it is a worry and I think it's you know, the two topics we've discussed today has kind of made me worry that the next one of the next big things the government are going to have to fix is higher education, and they're going to have to prop it up in some way because we really need. We really need to make it the big, great export that it always has been.
Speaker 1:I think we've always known that international students take rankings incredibly seriously, but also, like I've seen firsthand from my stepdaughter, she takes rankings incredibly seriously. So I don't think it's just an international student thing. I think if you think about the domestic student side of things, well, of course you're going to try and go to the best university that you can go to with the grades that you've got. So I don't think I know you know Dan's explaining there's a lot of sort of controversy or you know dissatisfaction with the QS rankings and how they come about. But they're there, you know they're there. They're impactful, students care and that's what we've got to take a look at.
Speaker 3:And based on that, though, is there a risk that actually, you get more domestic students actually going to other countries to study, then, if they're looking at the rankings, which is another risk to universities and PBSA.
Speaker 1:Another thing that's struck me in the news this week is looking at the other end of the housing market. If you were, I read an article in a Telegraph by Jonathan Brandling-Harris from the House Collective, arguing how potentially a one-time exemption of stamp duty for empty nesters could get Britain's housing market moving again. And we discussed later living, and particularly rental living in the later living sector, and why that isn't more of a viable option. So I read that and I thought is it really stamp duty that's putting off over 65s moving or selling their houses? I'm not sure. I think from everything that we've read it's more around well, a lack of viable options to move to, people not wanting to give up their family home, a worry over equity and having to pay for future care as well. So I'm not sure that this is the golden bullet when it comes to the housing market.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree. I think talking about gardens is totally relevant, because when you, when I look at a lot of my, I'm very lucky I live on. I live in a village, we have a nice garden, we're a little bit further out than most people, we're sort of 10 minutes away from the school as well, but most of the gardens being built these days, whether it's in single family housing or just general housing, they're postage stamps, they're absolutely tiny, and I think that's a that's a real issue and when you come to downsizing, I think that that is something that you will be looking for, and maybe that means that some, for some people, later living just wouldn't be right and that it's possibly one step beyond that sort of. Well, you know, the kids have flown the nest, they're all grown up, they've got grandkids. Now what do we do? Do we want to go into a later living where we're in an apartment with no garden? Probably not.
Speaker 2:I think you're right, dini, to flag that. So it's certainly something to think about, and I think that's where, the more I see it and the more I understand it, the more I like the look of the single family housing sector and I think that is going to take off in a very big way because I and I really obviously do a lot of work in the BTR sector as well, but not everyone wants apartment living. We're building a lot of apartments, but do families really want that? Do elderly people really want that? What does that really sort of look like from a demand perspective?
Speaker 2:Or is it still just primarily young professionals and early families in BTR At the class conference last year I stayed in U-House the co-living at Vita Circle Square in Manchester and they had a resident on there who was moving out on the panel and he was giving a really open and honest explanation as to why that was and it was because he wanted a garden and he just had a young son. He'd lived there for 18 months in in Vita and he wanted a garden. So I think this is where we become this fully blended shared living sector. Um, when you start looking at you know later living and you're at your, you know your mum's objection to moving into a typical later living property with no garden would obviously be that it will keep her young and she would want that.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, real convergence there of the sectors, I think I think the thing with downsizing is that have we got the right products that people want to downsize to? And I think, when I reflect on my mum and some other people like friends of hers, is they've got gardens, and the gardens keep them young, they keep them moving, they keep them active and that's really important to them. And at a time kind of, when you've got more time to do that, I'd love to spend more time in my garden, but I don't have the time to do it because it's a really like full-on hobby. It's very time-consuming hobby, but that keeps them young and active. And I think you know for my mom I mean, my mom did effectively downsize her home, um, but she's still got a, a decent size garden that she can garden, that that keeps her active, keeps her mind where she wants it to be, and and she should be at a loss without that really.
Speaker 1:and so I kind of feel that if we really want to get access to these homes and and make them back to family homes, we really need to think about what downsizing really means, and that's what we don't have so my, my sister is quite a lot older than me and her husband is just turning 65, but unusually they have an 18 year old daughter, my niece, who has special educational needs and epilepsy and will probably have to live with them for quite some time um, if not forever, and they're looking to downsize. They have a big, big house but they still want four bedrooms. So for them, downsizing is downsizing square footage, but my sister still wants four bedrooms so that her three children can choose to live there or, if they move out, they have a home to come back to, and I think we are going to see more of that. I think a lot of people have, you know, in our generation kind of have had children later, which means they will have children in their homes later. And, as we know, as we discuss all the time, there's an affordability issue. So a lot of those children won't be able to move out, whether that's renting or buying until probably much later. So people probably will be holding on to their homes later and longer.
Speaker 1:But, like we said, there's not really any alternative at the moment apart from apartment living. I mean, some apartments are incredible in the later living and some of them do offer a garden alternative, even in BTR. I remember seeing one of the Quintain BTR blocks with allotments on the roof, which I just thought was brilliant. You can each have plot, but more and more, I think in later living, retirement, I see beautiful, beautiful landscaped gardens but they're not for the residents to landscape, they're looked after for them and that's part of their maintenance fee. So I don't think it would take much to create kind of allotment style garden plots, you know, within later living developments, for the residents to look after themselves.
Speaker 1:It just has to be, you know, really thoughtfully designed. Really there needs to be. And also, yeah, the quintain block they had a shed on on the roof as well, because people don't have space in their flats necessarily for all of their tools and this had a space for that. So you just have to think quite creatively about gardens really, I think, and you can still have them in apartments, but they need to be really considered from the outset part of the initial design. I mean, you know, I think with the stamp duty thing, which is where this conversation started, it's always going to be a good thing, but I'm just not sure it's going to have the huge impact that maybe this Jonathan Brandling Harris thinks it might do. Anyway, we are now going to hear from our sponsor, utopia.
Speaker 3:This episode is brought to you by Utopia, the smart building platform that helps real estate owners protect the value of their assets.
Speaker 2:From ESG compliance to energy efficiency and resident engagement. Utopia turns real-time data into action, making buildings better for people, planet and profit.
Speaker 1:If you're in asset management or operations and care about performance, utopia is your essential partner. Find out more at utopiacouk. That's U-T-O-P-I dot, co dot UK. I just wanted to talk about one more news thing, which is co-living. I know we come back to it all the time, but this debate seems to be rumbling on and on what is co -living? Jenna Harris from Harris Associates has been doing a series on LinkedIn on it, including a poll, and I've been digesting all of the responses and I find it really interesting.
Speaker 1:I personally come to the conclusion that in this country, co-living is studio VTR. So I don't even think we need to be talking about co-living anymore because I don't think it's the right context for it. I don't think it offers anything different to VTR. That's not a negative thing, that's just saying it's a completely different product. We wouldn't refer to it like this for residents. They don't know what VTR is anyway, so it's kind of an irrelevant terminology anyway.
Speaker 1:But on LinkedIn I saw Yanni Sassouris from Poha House saying co-living is about addressing a fundamental mismatch between how people want to live and what cities actually offer. People want flexibility but also connection, autonomy but also belonging. They want homes that support their goals, not just shelter for their things. It's part of a much bigger shift from ownership to access, from privacy to shared purpose, from passive buildings to living ecosystems, and I applaud that. And for me and all the research and the clients that dini and I have spoken to and all of the things we've learned at the class conference over the years, that is what co living is. It's about shared, shared goals and shared interests and shared values, not just a place to live, but, like I said, I'm fine with that. I feel like I've made peace with the definition of co living finally, and just have to accept that in this country, studio in inverted commas co living is actually BTR and if we want to see co-living, it's a completely different thing.
Speaker 3:I agree with your statement. I don't know if I've made peace with it because I think it's a missed opportunity and I think that co-living in its sense that you just said there, sarah, is something that really can have a positive impact on rental living in this country. It can really help with the current housing crisis we have and it can really give that sense of a place that is yours, but with that degree of flexibility, a place to, I guess, grow and develop. And just at a point in your life when you need that kind of space, it's there. And I think if we don't develop that in the UK, I think it's a missed missed opportunity.
Speaker 3:And you know a studio BTR I just think back to, kind of, when I first started renting in London. It's a bedsit and I'm not saying that studio BTR have the same reputation as what a bedsit gives to me, but essentially we're creating these smaller spaces where individuals live on their own, and is that really what people want? You know the bedsit didn't really work in the end. It served a purpose for for people in a certain time in their life and I guess you could say studio BTR does the same. But I think there could be so much more if we actually looked at it in the way that co-living formed originally around.
Speaker 2:I think BTR is just such a crap name. I think that it's got an identity crisis in itself, and I would say that co-living should replace BTR, personally. And then your typical subsets of co-living are that you have studio-led schemes, which are typically going to be focused a bit more on the graduates, young professionals, students potentially and then you have your sort of one well, two, three, four bed apartments, which is, you know, what we're seeing in a lot of BTR at the moment. But the lines are so blurred between both of them. I don't know why we have to differentiate and call, you know, btr one thing and co-living and another thing, because there are plenty of properties out there that would call themselves btr, that have quite a few studios. Then they have the two, three, four bed apartments, and I think that is, you know, a bit of a bit of a challenge. Oh sorry, the one, two, three, four bed apartments.
Speaker 2:I just I think we're getting a bit caught up with what co-living is. I actually think that this is probably born out of the disaster that was the collective and the fact that the collective was supposed to be the shining light of co-living, showing everyone what you know. I suppose micro living could look like there's another term for there where they have small studio-led rooms, loads of amenities, yoga lessons, origami lessons, whatever the hell else you know they had at the collective that was costing so much money and I think that that going bust, and in such a public way, was and you know the way that that all unfolded with you know very unrealistic valuations and expectations and the types of investors that plowed money in there and didn't really ask enough questions. I think that has burned a lot of investors in particular who are now very wary of co-living as a term and the kind of typical co-living buildings, when actually there's a huge opportunity in merging co-living and BTR to say we're just going to offer rental living for a. Anyone between you know whether they're students, whether they're young professionals, post-grads, young families, whatever it might be but then how do you differentiate that within that community and how at the moment, btr is struggling with the fact that it's built on the backs of students, that a huge number of students in some of those key cities like leeds or glasgow are actually residents in btr, when all of those BTR operators and investors would want those to be young professionals, to really show that BTR can stand on its own two feet and doesn't need students to prop it up, which is exactly what's happening at the moment. I'd like to think that that would dissipate, your number of students would dissipate, but I think you've got the.
Speaker 2:You know, blended living can only go so far. Do you want your undergrads living with families? No, you definitely don't. Do you want, you know, young professionals living with families? Potentially, depending on the age, depending on that kind of typical cohort? So yeah, we don't have the right answers here or any specific solutions, but it's just interesting to, as a commentator and and an observer, to watch everybody struggle with BTR and co-living, both the terminology and the actual execution of what it looks like to live in one of those properties. You know what each brand stands for, what each property stands for, who they can take, who they can't take. But yeah, it's fascinating to watch but equally frustrating.
Speaker 1:I just think that a studio in an apartment block is just that co-living I think needs to be on a smaller scale. I don't think you can do co-living in a block of hundreds and hundreds of people. That kind of defeats the object of co-living. I think if you had, you know, a series of shared flats, maybe three and four bedroom flats, and there was only 50 units or 100 units, and that block was made for specific people with specific values or interests or jobs or hobbies, then that would be co-living because they would. There'd be lots of mechanisms for them to share their experiences, share their resources, share their hopes, their dreams, their values.
Speaker 1:And I just don't think you get that when you are encouraging people to live behind their own front door on their own. And yes, there's lots of communal facilities, but we know from pbsa that they're not used a lot and they're only, you know, used, I guess, on repeat, by the same people and they're not necessarily used to meet people and communicate with people and to share those living experiences together. So I just yeah, I just think it's a different product and we haven't seen co-living in this country and maybe we will one day.
Speaker 3:I think the challenge is that and I think I absolutely agree with you, sarah that co-living in its sense of this ambitious sense of a community working together for a shared purpose is, or a shared living purpose is, better delivered on a smaller scale. I think the problem we have in this country is that our cost of land is really really high and therefore building on a smaller scale is not really affordable. And I think that's where we challenge with co-living, and I'm not sure we're ever going to really get over that, because I think land is always going to be expensive because we're a small island.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it will take scale to then dissipate out and create smaller units, which will take time. So, yeah, keep watching this space. I'm sure we will keep coming back to this again and again, and again. In the meantime, we are going to be joined now by Holly Jordan-Wright from Howard Kennedy. She's joining us to give an update about the renter's rights bill as part of our Ask the Expert series. What we tasked Holly with is cutting through the noise to hear directly about where in the process we're up to. So let's go over to our interview with Holly. I'd like to welcome back Holly Jordan-Wright from Howard Kennedy. Holly has joined us on previous episodes to discuss some really key factors to do with the renter's rights bill that might impact you if you are an operator, developer or investor within the shared living world. So welcome back, holly, and I know that you've got some updates for us now. We've gone a little bit further through the process, so over to you.
Speaker 4:Hi, sarah, thank you so much for having me back. It's pleasure to be with you and your listeners again. Yes, so the Renters Rights Bill completed its journey through the committee stage of the House of Lords on the 15th of May 2025, and this stage saw peers going through the various clauses of the bill and considering many amendments that were proposed, so I've put together some key points I think it'd be really good for your listeners to hear about. So the first point that I thought would be good to mention is about fixed term tenancies. There's been a lot of talk about whether or not there will be some exceptions to fixed term tenancies, and those were included in a number of amendments, including in relation to student accommodation, and the idea was that you would keep fixed term tenancies for some types of accommodation. The government has been really clear that they're not going to back down on the abolition of fixed term tenancies at all, so we don't expect any amendments to the bill in that regard.
Speaker 1:Great. So that's a certainty, would you say.
Speaker 4:I think we can say that's a certainty. Yes.
Speaker 1:Great. So moving on now to HMO and non-PBSA student tenancies. Where are we with that? Because before it was, they're going to be exempt. They're not going to be exempt. What makes them a student accommodation? What is a PBSA, what isn't a PBSA? So have we got any clarity on that?
Speaker 4:OK. So for HMOs and non-PBSA student tenancies there will be no fixed terms, so they will fall under the assured tenancy regime. And that does leave landlords vulnerable to void periods if a student ends a tenancy earlier in the academic year, which they will be able to do under the bill. Now landlords of HMOs will have to rely on ground 4a to seek possession if a tenant fails to vacate at the end of the academic year. But what they need to do is that they have to have given four months notice, so their section eight notice, the date specified in the section eight notice, which is known as the relevant date. It must fall within the period of 1 June and 30th of September that year. So that's the summer recess period.
Speaker 4:And if a student doesn't vacate, I think there's a real risk that a possession order wouldn't be secured before the new academic year starts, just because the amount of time that a possession claim could take to go through the courts and that could have a knock-on impact for HMO and non-PBSA student tenancies when landlords need to get possession because they've got the next student lined up for the next year. Now government have said that there'll be legislation changes to allow for that notice to be given within 28 days of implementation of the Act. But so far we've got no sign of how that will actually be achieved and it wasn't referenced in the Lords Committee debate. So, unfortunately, on that one we are waiting to see how it will work in practice. But we do expect there to be a bit of an answer once we get the final draft of the bill.
Speaker 1:OK, I was going to say all of this involves extra resource, extra paperwork, extra people. So, in reality, these timescales, like you said, there's no evidence that anyone's actually going to be able to meet these guidelines and deadlines these guidelines and deadlines.
Speaker 4:It's going to require landlords to be really on the ball about the changes when they're coming into force, when they need to do certain acts by, such as, giving prior notice, whether that's amendments to their form of tenancy agreements, or giving updated notice if an agreement is already in place.
Speaker 1:So where are we with PBSA exemption?
Speaker 4:Okay. So PBSA, as we know, that tends to have smaller residential units, typically one or two bedroom flats, targeted at a different demographic from those using the private rented sector, and they're currently inside the Housing Act regime and our ASTs. Now under the bill they're not going to be caught by the HMO grounds for possession for the Renters' Rights Bill because of the layout of those typical types of pbsa flats. But the government has said pbsa will transition from the assured short-haul tenancy regime over to common law tenancies, putting them outside the remit of much of the bill. Now this matter was debated at length in the house of lords. No government amendments were actually made to insert the concession into the bill. Now we know that pbsa providers will need to sign up to the national code for landlords and that needs to be approved by secondary legislation.
Speaker 4:But the government, the code has undergone significant revision and is out for public consultation but the final text isn't yet agreed. Now this is going to require the government to bring in to force the bill and the code at the same time in order for the PBSA exemption to have the intended effect. If it isn't finalised or landlords aren't signed up to the code, then PBSA what were ASTs will become assured tenancies and that could be a significant disruption to the PBSA market. For example, it could give students the opportunity to give notice and leave landlords with void periods that would be difficult to fill outside the usual rhythm of the academic calendar and if, for example, like a landlord might be tempted to install non-students to fill a void, it could potentially put themselves in breach of planning requirements or finance agreements and things like that. So it's really important that the government make sure that that PBSA exemption comes into force at the same time as the bill itself as the bill itself.
Speaker 1:Okay, but it sounds like they are now on board with that and they understand PBSA and they understand why it should be treated differently.
Speaker 4:Yes, which is a relief.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. So what are the next steps and timing for implementation? You know we've talked. I've heard May, then June, then July, then October be mentioned. Where are we at?
Speaker 4:So the next stage is for the amendments to be put to a vote in what's called the report stage. This is followed by a third reading in the House of Lords and then a bit of back and forth between both houses to agree the final form of the bill. The report stage has been scheduled for the first two weeks of July 2025. So I think because of that, the bill is unlikely to finish its full progress through Parliament and receive royal assent before the summer recess, on 22 July. I think it's more likely it's going to come into law in the autumn. Now we expect there to be a delay between coming into law and then implementation. So I think we will be looking, probably the end of 2025 or 2026.
Speaker 1:OK, so that's quite different to the assumptions. Is it a good thing or a bad thing that it's been put back? You know how do you think that's going to implement tenancies and kind of the cycle.
Speaker 4:I think for anyone that's operating in the student accommodation market, it's a good thing, because they need time to plan, they need time to update their agreements, they need time to understand the new rules. So I think the longer period we can have before it is actually implemented, the better for everybody.
Speaker 1:Great. Okay, well, we've run out of time, Holly, but thank you so much. That certainly made it clearer for me. You know we wanted to cut through the noise and you've been really, really great at doing that. So thank you very much, and I'm sure we will have you back on house when there is more updates to be had.
Speaker 4:I look forward to it.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for having me, sarah, and that's all for today and thank you so much to my student halls for being our headline sponsor for the season. Your support is hugely appreciated, as is the support from Utopia and Wash Station. We're also grateful for your support. If you work in the PBSA, btr, co-living, later, later living, hmo and university accommodation sectors and enjoy our weekly podcast, please give it a rating and review on your podcast channel of choice and we will see you again next week.