Survey also reveals how students view their landlords
Affordable rent, internet connection, and location are the most important features of rented accommodation for students, a recent study has shown.
The results of a survey carried out on behalf of Paragon Bank revealed that more than four in 10, or 42%, of students consider rent affordability as the number one factor in picking a place to live in while attending a university. Also important to undergraduates are good Wi-Fi and proximity to their university site, both chosen by just over a quarter (27%).
Other characteristics that students look for include room size (25%), inclusion of bills in rent (18%), and proximity to public transport links (15%).
Paragon Bank also said that nearly eight in 10 students (78%) have rated the overall quality of their current rented accommodation highly.
The student lodging’s location satisfied the highest proportion of students, with 84% rating it as good to excellent. Bed and room sizes are also highly rated, with 83% and 82% of students saying they are good to excellent, respectively.
Read more: Which locations deliver the strongest student rental yields?
The specialist buy-to-let lender also sought to find out the students’ view of landlords. Over half (54%) responded positively in total, with 38% viewing landlords positively and 16% very positively. Indifference was seen in just over one in five (21%) students, with survey respondents indicating that their view of landlords who let to students was neither positive nor negative.
“It is encouraging to see that students view landlords positively overall,” Richard Rowntree (pictured), mortgages managing director at Paragon Bank, said. “The high levels of satisfaction in the homes provided by landlords letting to students will be a significant factor in this.
“HESA data shows that UK student numbers have consistently grown since the 1990s and that privately rented homes have long been undergraduates’ preferred choice of accommodation. Student homes used to be associated with poor quality, but today’s undergraduates are demanding more, particularly as individual landlords are often competing against private institutional providers.”
