The opportunities void beds can offer, have we cracked the definition of co-living, AI won't wait & Ireland development stalls

This week, Dan Smith, Deenie Lee and Sarah Canning cover:

- The real definition of co-living; exploring YorSpace in York, where residents share tools, childcare, and even solar panels.
-  Ireland's student accommodation market, where legislative intervention including rent caps has effectively halted development despite a projected shortfall of up to 68,000 beds by 2035.
- Why void rooms don't have to mean lost revenue.
- And why you should be adopting AI now and not in the future.

Stay up to date on Housed podcast via its LinkedIn page.

Dan Smith is Founder of RESI Consultancy and Co-Founder of Verbaflo.AI Good Management.

Sarah Canning and Deenie Lee are Directors and Co-Founders of The Property Marketing Strategists - Elevating Marketing in Property.

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.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome Back to Season Five
• 2:58 True Co-living: Community Housing Models
• 11:03 PropTech Connect and AI Implementation
• 23:36 Ireland's PBSA Market Challenges
• 31:34 Creative Solutions for Void Rooms
• 40:40 Final Thoughts and Episode Closing

Transcript

SPEAKER_05: 0:00

Hello everyone and welcome back to House, the Shared Living Podcast. This is the second episode in season five, and we are really delighted to be back once more with brand new content. And I still can't believe we've actually got to season five. Anyway, on with the introductions. I'm Deanny Lee from the Property Marketing Strategists.

SPEAKER_02: 0:17

I'm Dan Smith from Resi Consultancy and Verberflow AI.

SPEAKER_04: 0:21

And I'm Sarah Canning from the Property Marketing Strategists. But first, a word from our headline sponsor.

SPEAKER_03: 0:28

Season five of Housed, sponsored by MyStudentools.com. List your properties commission-free and reach thousands of students searching for their university home.

SPEAKER_05: 0:39

Dan and the team from MyStudent Halls have been supporters of House since the beginning, and we are incredibly grateful that they are here once again as headline sponsors of season five. We know anyone working student accommodation is really busy right now, budget setting. So make sure you do get in contact with Dan and the team to make sure you have MyStudent Halls in your budget for the 26 and 27 leasing season. Also, of course, a huge thank you to Wash Station and Utopia for coming back and sponsoring House once again. But we'll hear more from them later. Firstly, a big thank you to all of you for your feedback on last week's episode. It seems that you were pleased that we were back and we were too. We've kind of missed our little weekly chats. But it seems some of our conversation on the PBSA sector did hit a bit of a nerve. We probably won't spend too much long on that this week, but we will keep you updated as this conversation continues. So how are you both? Are you both all good?

SPEAKER_02: 1:30

Very good. Very busy since last week. Obviously the feedback was was very positive. I mean, positive about a negative, I think, uh overall in terms of uh how the sector has performed this year. But had a lot of feedback from operators in particular saying thank you very much for kind of painting a really true picture of how the market is at the moment, because when you're rent setting, investors need to know all of that. But uh yeah, I've been very busy fielding a lot of those calls. We're closing out the season, as you well know, although it's going to be a longer leasing season, I think. We'll be selling well into October. Then you'll need to think about your January semesters as well. So that's most of our work at the moment at Resi Consultancy, and obviously Verberflow is very much taken off, so that's taking more and more of my time too. So, Sarah, what have you been up to?

SPEAKER_04: 2:15

I think as I said last week, September we've we've hit the ground running, really, and it's really great to kind of be back looking at kind of operators, developers, investors, and lots of suppliers coming to us for proposals and brand workshops. So I know we say it every year, but like this is the time of year to engage with us, get us in your your budgets. Um, you know, particularly if you've got kind of year targets, don't leave marketing and sales until the last kind of eight weeks and panic. So it does seem like people might be doing that this year from the amount of inquiries we've had so far this September.

SPEAKER_02: 2:50

Good. Good. Getting ahead of it, that sounds really positive because we don't want to see cashbacks in the market.

SPEAKER_05: 2:56

Definitely no to cashbacks. But for our first topic today, we're going to talk a little bit about co-living. There was an article on the BBC this week around a new community space called Your Space, which I think the ethos of it, both Sarah and I really fell in love with and Dan, kind of just really about really is co-living, that actually this is a shared community where you can share childcare, you can share tools, you car share, and actually it's it's a sales community, but it's bought on a place where actually the the market rate will always stay at 30% below its value. And it kind of we spoke about it so often that actually co-living never really feels quite co-living. It's just a bunch of rooms stuck together and hope let's build community, whereas this feels it's starting from the ground up. What did you guys most think?

SPEAKER_04: 3:46

Love it. Love everything about it. I must say um it was Jake Jennings that sent sent the article um initially because he'd heard us talking about the Marmalade Lane scheme in Cambridgeshire, which um I've referenced quite a few times, and this is another of those kind of sort of cooperative housing developments. But to clarify, it's a housing development, it's not an apartment living. So when we're talking about co-living, it was I I kind of had an epiphany really, like, oh, this is what co-living is. Like Deanny said, you know, I've have we just been calling it wrong? Like, what why are we calling co-living co-living? Because actually it's just apartments in a block and they share communal spaces, which is no different to BTR or PBSA. But this is really living alongside each other and making decisions together. So one thing that I read was the residents have invested in a shared set of solar panels through which they plan to act as their own energy supplier, and they are clubbing together to buy a cargo bike and trailer for weekly shops and to ferry children to and from school. So that's brilliant. You know, they're they're they're working out a way to live side by side and share resources and values. And I, yeah, like I said, just couldn't love it anymore, really.

SPEAKER_02: 4:59

I think that that's that real sense of community that I think we're all searching for, whether it's PBSA, BTR or co-living, actually building that community, it's it's it's not that easy by just saying, right, here's a load of studios in a massive tower block with some amenities. Getting people actually out to you know really interact with other residents is it's not that easy. Now, when you have more sort of housing development that could be classed as co-living, I do think that is is then easier. But how can we install that then uh into into co-living? Because co-living is still effectively studio-led BTR. I think that's that's what most people are sort of tending to call it. And it still feels like it's not fully standing on its own two feet. I mean BTR is barely doing that at the moment because of the number of students that are living in it, and very difficult to actually develop any BTR at the moment that that will you know instantly fill and have young professionals left, right, and centre. So I I think having more examples like Marmalade Lane, like your space, where you can really show that sense of community, I think that's absolutely key. And you know, the more we see of that, the better. Uh would you class this actually as single family housing in in some way, shape or form?

SPEAKER_04: 6:13

Yeah, I think so. The other thing that I find interesting and would love it if somebody could could write in and tell us the reason for it. So this article it also references another community housing scheme, which is in Leeds, which is called Lilac, which stands for Low Impact Living Affordable Community. And it's made up of 20 homes and it has its own allotment site and shared space where stud where residents regularly eat together. So it's a very it's the it's kind of it was the basis that your space was built. So that cooperative, but these are both affordable. Like, why is that? Why can only affordable schemes have this kind of cooperative way of living together? Because, okay, maybe it's a bit of a way of saving money because you're sharing resources. There's definitely an environmental lens on it as well, because you know, it's not all about kind of using stuff all the time, um, you know, and and not sharing it am amongst other people. But yeah, it's just interesting why these are being billed as affordable rather than mainstream.

SPEAKER_05: 7:12

Well, as you were talking, Sarah, I was just thinking that one of the things they do do in your space is that they do field people to be like-minded, and actually that's one thing we talk about in PBSA all the time, is actually we don't do that, and we know universities sometimes shy away from doing that because they don't feel it's the right thing to do. But you do create community of like-minded people, and to live in your space, you have to have those ethics of yes, I want to share those, also I want to do those things, and yes, I'm gonna be part of the community, not working against it. And I guess the other thing I was thinking when you were talking, Dan, is that is this back down to our fascination with segregation and naming? It feels like co-living has got a name, but it doesn't really have a brand or a purpose or a talk. We just go, like you say, let's build some studio BTR and let's call it co-living and everyone will think it's great. And it's like it doesn't work like that. Yeah. This is just homes for people, and this is homes for people with a certain ethos. And we need more of that in our building.

SPEAKER_02: 8:04

We definitely m need more of that. I'm I'm on the website at the moment for your space, and the tagline is bringing a fairer kind of housing to York. Now it's a community land trust, so I think that means it's obviously you know it's a not-for-profit effectively, and that it takes that kind of thinking where it is it is slightly less commercial, dare I say it, and a bit more focused on actually doing good within the community to get something like this off the ground. If you gave it to a standard private equity real estate or developer, obviously they would need to be more commercial about it. So yeah, I I wonder if if this is just going to be almost an exception, because we've we've seen Marmalade Lane, we've got your space. There's s a couple of other examples as well, but they're kind of few and far between. So I just wonder if maybe it is down to labelling. Maybe we're not segmenting these well enough to talk about co-living effectively in multiple different sort of types of communities. Maybe we need to just totally change the language, the terms, and get that adopted across the board. Uh how you do that, I don't know. Does it start from the top with the likes of the British Property Federation almost dictating that? Or is it is it that we've tried to be sort of young and cool and the collective kind of brought about, hey, we're co-living and this is what it looks like. It's five hundred studio beds and then some big amenity space and a load of like yoga events and and pet therapy or whatever it might be. I I I think it's almost time for uh a glossary of terms, as it were. So um, yeah, well what watch this sp watch this space, we'll see if there's any of that that comes about from the BPF.

SPEAKER_05: 9:36

Yeah, dare I say it, is it kind of a lack of strategy when you're launching a new product to the market and you're actually you're not marketing it in the with the right marketing strategy. So you know where to come.

SPEAKER_04: 9:45

But also shapeless plug. But also, and this, you know, Deanny and I very much count ourselves as product marketers, is is finding that USP, you know, what is the strategic point? Because you've got to differentiate yourself in the market. And you know, that kind of living's not going to be for everybody, and that's absolutely fine because actually if you don't have a niche, if you don't have a hook, you're just marketing to everybody, but then everybody is marketing to everybody. And actually, if you can create these kind of communities that have a particular type of resident in mind, then you can be super targeted with the marketing and very, very, very clear on your proposition. You know, and we we talk about this all the time about European co-living, you know, that they have the nomadic, you know, digital nomad houses and they have the yoga houses and they have the chef houses, and you know, they that that is what it was, and it and it was born out of like-minded people with a shared vision, a s shared ethos, shared interests living together, because that is what co-living is, really. So this is just that, I think, but on a housing scheme instead of an apartment scheme. But as far as I'm concerned, that is my new definition of co-living. Yeah, love it.

SPEAKER_05: 10:57

Just need some work. But we'll see if the sector gets there. First, we'd have a quick break to hear from one of our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by Utopia, the smart building platform that helps real estate owners protect the value of their assets.

SPEAKER_01: 11:11

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_04: 11:20

If you're in asset management or operations and care about performance, utopia is your essential partner. Find out more at utopia.co.uk. That's utopi.co.uk.

SPEAKER_05: 11:33

Many thanks, Utopia, for joining us again back for season five. Dan, I believe you were off on the conference circuit again a couple of weeks ago. Can you tell us a little bit how Prop Tech Connect was?

SPEAKER_02: 11:45

I can. Yeah, yeah. This I think this was my fifteenth sort of uh speaking engagement or uh yeah, the um 15th event of of the year so far. Now, PropTech Connect feels like it's relatively new, but it's been going for a for a few years now. Matthew Moltoff, the the CEO, founded it and brings together PropTech suppliers, investors, operators, anyone who is effectively in the market for any kind of property technology. So everything from sustainability through to AI solutions like Verberflow. Now we sponsored part of it this year. We had our own little stand, albeit it was tiny. But we came en masse with quite a few people and we managed to get a lot of the PBSA and BTR sector there, in particular the clients of Verbflow already. It's quite the show. So, you know, people come out to, you know, there's entrance music, and Matthew chose Tiny Temper. I'm not I'm not sure quite what that says about him, but either way, it was it was very sort of razzle dazzle at the start. Now, some of the headline speakers, Raj Singh in particular from JLL Spark, which is effectively the venture capital arm investing in PropTech for JL, that was really insightful. Uh I've I got a lot of value from that. So a lot of the a lot of the speakers are kind of headline keynote speakers that you'll see travel around internationally and and do a lot of these talks. And Raj Singh was basically talking about AI and how transformative it was going to be. Preaching to the choir with me in particular, I obviously I already can see that. But it was actually quite alarming how few AI solutions there were actually there and that were talked about. There were a lot of I mean saying that, yes, there was Verberflow, there was another there was another AI company a little further down the down the promenade, as it were. But realistically, not m not that many people were really saying, yep, AI is going to totally transform each of our jobs. And it was more the sort of legacy prop tech players who were there that were kind of trying to almost still prove their value in an era where AI is totally transforming every role and every department within real estates. So I think next year will be a very different affair. I think it won't be a case of what's kind of coming down the line and and you know, where is AI going to take us? And it will be what did AI do for us over the last 12 months and who hasn't got it? And it will be very, very obvious as to which prop tech providers are not employing AI and which operators and investors and developers are aren't doing that too. I'm not just talking about AI because of verb flow, I'm talking about AI because that's going to be the big transformation where we can already see some of those legacy systems are falling away from the systems architecture within PBSA and BTR and co-living as well. And so you don't necessarily need a CRM anymore. That can all be taken care of by by AI. And there's lots of other transformations there as well. So it feels like Proptech, even though it's still relatively nascent to a certain extent, is is actually still quite slow on the uptake. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_04: 14:53

Are people still talking about AI being the future?

SPEAKER_02: 14:56

They are, yes.

SPEAKER_04: 14:57

Not the now.

SPEAKER_02: 14:58

No. And this and this is the that that was one my my kind of key takeaway. I was there were a few people on stage where I was like, uh how have you not mentioned AI once during that session? Like, you know, it it is and and there's a few that are saying, yes, this is coming down the line. It is going to change the roles. No, it it is already doing that. And it's not just not just through us and and what we do, there's multiple other AI firms and and areas of prop tech where A or operations effectively where AI is being implemented. That's totally changing structure, business model, processes, you know, systems architecture, whatever it might be. That is happening right now. So those that are kicking the can down the road, even beyond saying, well, actually let us get through leasing season and we'll discuss it in September. That's fine. Some people have already put you know AI solutions in place and have had them in place for a year now, or you know, seven months as it is with with us. And they're already seeing the benefits. They're first movers, and there is some serious first mover advantage here. So i it it's it's really going to be a survival of the fittest. Who implemented AI properly didn't just dip their toes in and then go, oh no, actually that's that's not gonna be for for me, we'll stick with the legacy systems. Um it's fascinating to see, but it was slightly alarming that AI wasn't more of a conversation on stage. That's not down to bad curation. I think it's down to the fact that sponsors in particular are typically legacy operators, uh legacy prop tech suppliers, and that means that therefore they're going to be focused on selling their old wares. And I think the PMS sector is very guilty of not implementing AI well enough, quick enough. I think that's been a yeah, this is coming down the line. So we'll get there, we'll dip our toes in. And what's happening is that solutions like Verbflow and some others are coming in now and saying, well, hang on, you don't need just CRM. So that's HubSpot, Salesforce, or Zoho or Zendesk or whatever gone. You know, what next? And that's where I think you know there there needs to be a lot more focus on what this is going to do within our systems architecture for every PBSA, BTR, and co-living operator.

SPEAKER_05: 17:15

But does it go beyond just systems architecture? It kind of feels that where we are at the moment is those early movers are implementing a system like Verberflow and saying, tick, I've got my AI, right, let's carry on. Whereas actually it feels like it should be how we talked about sustainability, that actually you need to look throughout your whole business through a lens of sustainability and actually how can I be sustainable. And with AI, you need to look at your whole business operation from finance to to marketing to operations, in how can AI help me streamline how I run my business. And it it doesn't feel like we're in that realm. It feels like we're in a oh, I've got a bit of software that means that I can deal with customer inquiries quickly. So therefore I'm done, I've got AI in my business, let's move on.

SPEAKER_02: 17:59

It's exactly that. I think the clients that are getting the best value out of it right now are the ones who are seeing it underpinning their systems architecture and their entire companies. Like it, you know, how does it affect your structure? How does it affect how much you sit that sits at the property or the HQ level in terms of costs and systems and people? And you've got a few that are kind of bolting things on and just saying, yeah, well we'll just, you know, we'll stick one use case on a lead acquisition or a maintenance module or whatever it might be using AI and the and the various uh agentic AIs. And and then you've got some that are saying, right, AI is already here, but it's definitely going to be the future. How do we make sure it underpins everything we do? And I think that's what we'll find relatively soon, that AI and various AI platforms will be totally underpinning the way that students book their accommodation, you know, the way they manage it as well. So resident engagement apps, yes, there's a there's a time and a place for them for sure, but the role of them is totally changing. And I think we need to be really mindful of do you just dip your toes in, do you go all in, what does that look like? These are the questions I'd be asking. Like and and I can say that from an outsider's perspective as well. Thinking as an operator, what would I be asking of the likes of a Verb flow? I would be making sure that I fully understood all of the costs that were involved right now, all of the use cases that this could possibly be applied against, where that where things are at now in terms of the number of use cases that we could roll this out to, the departments that could use it, because it's it is across you know ops, sales, marketing, finance and more. And how is that then going to help us become the sort of operator of the future where it's likely going to be a bit lighter in terms of staffing at HQ level in particular? And and I think there's going to be still more focus on community building at a site level. So that's where the people piece really comes in. Yeah, it it's yeah, it's a really, really good point. I do think underpinning your system with AI, no one really knows what that looks like. It's because it falls through the gaps of a lot of heads of IT. They're not heads of AI. Like that's a whole new ball game.

SPEAKER_05: 20:17

How many heads of IT do we have?

SPEAKER_02: 20:18

Well, exactly. Yeah. But but you you think of some of the big firms who have got uh heads of IT and systems managers and you know, we had a systems team of uh of three people at NEDO for what, three and a half, four thousand beds. And yeah, they they would need to have a a head of AI now, effectively, to to really understand what's out there and then you know how do you implement it.

SPEAKER_04: 20:40

I think the worrying thing that Deanny and I are finding is clients and we you know, we work across B2B and B2C, so we're not we're not talking about operators necessarily here, but people aren't even thinking of the future when they're designing new websites or looking to procure a website and thinking about that customer journey. You know, we had a conversation the other day and we were like, you need to be building your website and your technology for Gen Alpha. Like forget the students that are now, because by the time you've worked through this technology and done the research, you're building it for the student of the future or the customer of the future or the supplier of the future. And that obviously encompasses AI, but it also encompasses real investment in technology, really, really good technology. I just think it's a bit too short-sighted at the moment. People are are building for now. Well, they're not building with a strategy in place, so they might be thinking about AI, but if they've got a really, really rubbish website with rubbish content, you know, the AI is only as good as as what the website is. And if the website's no good, then the AI is not going to be any good, and that's not gonna help your case, you know, your case studies for it. So it's uh it's a whole technology strategy. But if you're dealing with a head of IT or head of systems, you're not you know, that's we very much believe that's not where a lot of these things sit. You know, they sit with operations and marketing, and they should be the ones making those decisions.

SPEAKER_02: 22:03

Yeah, it it it's fascinating in terms of who we try to approach when we're when we're selling this and who it sits with. And and like I said, it typically is, even in some massive firms, there are big gaps where it might be a head of innovation or you know, someone focused on systems or a head of IT, or it might actually be the COO or the ops director, or we have to approach the CEO to say, I don't know where this sits with you guys, but you need to come and see this because this is definitely going to be the future. But I think it's because everyone is kind of in their comfort zone. Yes, it's been a tougher year this year in terms of PBSA sales in particular and university voids and uh and and applications, but uh I I just think that there are there is such an opportunity here to show that the future is already here and it is, you know, like I said, there's that first mover advantage. But but yeah, I think we're in danger of turning this into a sponsored verb flow post.

SPEAKER_05: 22:56

But I was gonna say I'm sure we'll be back to AI again. Yeah, without sure, yeah. But I I was just gonna say it does come with investment, and that investment comes at a cost, but it it is it it will save you money in the long run. But we all know that it's budget time and it's often hard to get the investment you need in the right places. We'll just have a quick break and hear from one of our sponsors.

SPEAKER_00: 23:16

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_05: 23:26

Uh so there's a big news article in the Sunday Times uh a couple of Sundays ago around PBSA Ireland, where developers are digging hills in on investment as the student housing pipeline stalls, and which featured John Jacobs from GSA. Investors such as GSA and Aparto are deferring investment to elsewhere in Europe because of the rent caps and other legislative legislative changes happening in Ireland. Did you guys catch the article?

SPEAKER_04: 23:54

What's your thoughts? I'm always really interested to see what GSA have to say in particular about Ireland. I was part of the GSA team that invested into Ireland all those years ago. And it was really, really interesting because we were the first people to develop purpose-built student accommodation in Ireland, in Dublin. And at that time, we were praised, PR was everywhere, everyone was like, we are the saviours of students, because students genuinely at that time were homeless. There were students that were sofa surfing, and there were students that literally couldn't live anywhere. So JSA kind of changed that that landscape, and obviously others have followed, and it's now it has been a booming, a booming landscape really for PBSA. But even in the cycle that I was involved in it, which was probably only a couple of years, it changed and it was because everybody started pushing the rents up. So it went from the you know the city and the council and the government and the press being so supportive of what was happening within two years. It they were even back then, you know, when I'm talking like 10 years ago, they were talking about rent cuts back then. Obviously, it took a while for it to come through. But it's it's totally stopped investment, as as you just said, Deanny, it's stopped building. I mean, they they say that there's a shortfall of 25 to 30,000 student beds per year that could go up to 68,000 by 2035. You know, as with most data, this fails to recognise that students are living in other non-purpose built accommodation. And there are other residential buildings being built in Ireland that students can live in. So the government have proposed a 2% cap that wouldn't apply to new buildings to incentivise construction and it would be linked to inflation. And there's other legislation such as from March 2026, new tenancies will be tied into a six-year minimum rolling tenancy, and then landlords can reset rent unless a no fault eviction occurs. But you know, it's really, really tricky because we're always talking about the need for affordable accommodation, and and clearly that's what Ireland want is they don't want rents going up, you know, by ridiculous amounts anymore, and they don't want 51-week contracts anymore either. But there still has to be accommodation. So stopping it isn't helping. And as you always say, Dan, the more there is, the cheaper the rents will, you know, will become. But are there new investors who know what they're getting into? That was kind of my thought when I read the article. Is I get it, you know, it's changed. So people that were interested in Ireland that maybe started going through the planning process three, three, four years ago, clearly the landscape has changed. But I don't know, if you're an investor now and you know what you're getting into, are there is there still an appetite for it? Is there somebody that can swoop in and do what nobody else is doing?

SPEAKER_02: 26:39

It would just have to be the longer-term capital, the institutional investors that are quite happy to sit on their assets for twenty, fifty years, to be honest, to get those returns. Because you won't get the sort of smaller private equity houses now interested in Ireland. Just as you didn't in, you know, with with Scotland when rent caps were imposed, BTR ground to a halt, effectively. And anywhere where there is government intervention, either rent caps or you know, the the government, uh the Irish government also then mandated that you had to offer a less than a 51-week contract to students as well. Again, that just makes everyone rethink PBSA and the development there. Uh this was this was in Ireland last year actually that that was brought in. So they're having to offer 40-week contracts and then extensions to to sort of make up for the 51 weeks, which totally changes the investment profile. And that is where I just think there needs to be a much more coordinated approach. And there's a lot of land hogging that's going on currently in Ireland that we're seeing where developers are just sitting on that land or landowners are sitting on that land waiting for the government to be less interventionist. And and that's no good for anyone either, because you know, as as you said, Sarah, I've I've I say it all the time: the more you build, the cheaper the rents become, just purely from market forces, occupancy drops, then rents have to get more competitive. That's that's great for the student or the renter or the resident, whoever it might be. I think that's really the only way to to properly solve it. If you keep getting interventionist and you have you know all of these affordability criteria, some of which we see in uh in in London and we may see in other cities for PBSA and BTR and various other developments, or you mandate uh tenancy lengths, you you are just going to choke off that development and the and the the supply pipeline. And we have seen it pretty much every city or every country that has implemented those, it it has just choked that off. So I think Ireland's in a bit of a mess at the moment because they do need they are one of the places where you they genuinely do need a lot more student accommodation to bring those prices into line. Now you will get some students who now start to think I can't go to Dublin or Cork or Limerick or anywhere else because I'm priced out. Like students are looking at accommodation, it's one of the most important things. ICEF, again, the other day reposted uh a survey saying that you know accommodation is one of the most important things uh in terms of where students actually study now. So they're looking at how much they're going to pay in year one when they're in university halls potentially, and then year two and year three. So we really have to be super focused on that. It's just typically short-sighted, and then it gets involved in the political agenda, left and the right fighting over, you know, do you intervene, do you not? And the losers in this situation are uh of course the students and the residents.

SPEAKER_05: 29:30

It's like I think we always say is that we need more collaboration. And you know, we put a shout out to our new housing secretary last week to kind of say actually let's speak to people because Come on sticks. Yeah, sticks don't work. And this is a classic stick saying you've got to do this to give us affordable accommodation, whereas actually we need more discussion and carrots to to understand each other's sides and get to a middle whereby, as you say, the the person who's actually going to be paying the money, the renter, gets what they need.

SPEAKER_04: 29:58

So on that subject, I obviously went down a bit of a rabbit hole with this article. So I found out that the current currently student housing falls under the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. But they redirect queries relating to student housing to the further and higher education, research, innovation and science department. They do say that a new student accommodation strategy will be published by the year end. So we'll obviously feed back on that when we have it. But that's an example of how clearly there's not really collaboration between departments and it is falling between universities and housing basically. And I know Dan you just said that you know it's going to impact students the most but actually surely it's impacting universities because you know Ireland um have been in a perfect position post-Brexit. You know, they are you know the golden child of Europe. You know everyone wants to go to university in Ireland. Why wouldn't they? And they've always been really, really it's been really popular with American students as well. So you know it's probably went from you know having lots of student accommodation and now the universities have got more popular and now you've probably got that supply and demand imbalance which is why so many developers wanted to go there in the first place. So it has fallen between the the cracks but I'm I'm sure we'll come back to it when we see that how those legislative changes evolve over the next six months or so.

SPEAKER_05: 31:20

Absolutely no we'll keep keep watching the story, see how it progresses. So just our final point today that we wanted to reflect on our discussion last week which may have seemed a little bit negative and think about how we make this positive. If universities and PBSA do have void rooms what opportunity does this provide? It might not always be increased revenue but it could just give an opportunity to create initiatives to benefit residents and students.

SPEAKER_04: 31:46

So what thoughts have we got about how we can reuse these void rooms for a positive yeah I did reflect and thought we were really negative last week but then I started thinking okay so there might be void beds but what can they be used for? What are the opportunities? And actually once I started thinking about it I got really excited about the opportunities and anybody listening is about to get some free consultancy because all of the ideas but actually I I'd I'd be happy to give it away free because I think it's so important and I think that operators could really benefit from trying some different things. If you've got void beds don't leave them void. What's the point? You can try things that maybe you haven't had the opportunity to before I think we do need to note that booking systems, PMS systems don't naturally lend well to anything outside of the normal letting cycle but don't let that hold you back. You know you can you can work around that. So some ideas that I had was that you could obviously short term lets that's that's not rocket science everybody's doing that anyway but when I'm thinking of short-term lets I'm thinking like really short term and flexible I'm thinking of your commuting student that may only want two nights a week because that's how their timetable is working. Or they might just want to get really involved with freshers for the first few weeks and then they're happy to commute once their timetable settles down. You could target commuters that might be fed up of commuting by Christmas, you know, so actually your January lets that could be a target audience. You know they think it's a good idea but actually they're exhausted by travelling and maybe their timetable changes as well. We have talked about free accommodation for open days for students and parents before and I think traditionally people have found it quite hard because where do they slot that in and they can't necessarily make an income from it. But I just don't think you do need to make an income from it. You've got the void rooms anyway they're not making money anyway but how brilliant would it be to give students and parents free rooms now this also comes down obviously to allocations as well because you clearly can't have random parents and you know 17 year olds in a building amongst other students but actually if you've done your allocations right you should have free flats. And judging by what you said last week Dan about studios as well, you know put them in studios you could turn easily a large gold studio into a twin room for that kind of open day market as well. The other idea that that I also thought about which is inspired by some universities is how about creating quiet spaces for neurodiverse students to get some space when they're feeling overstimulated. They can invite a friend or family member to join them because like I said if you've got a void room anyway and you've got you know students that aren't getting on together and they need a bit of mediation actually you'll have the luxury of being able to take them out of that situation and give them 24 hours breathing space and you know I I can definitely see that being like really really positive you know you talk about wellbeing well actually this is you know a really really great initiative for wellbeing and mental health. Yeah there's loads of I ideas really and I feel like I'd love to brainstorm with an operator about this. You know marketing is always really difficult to target people outside of the classic kind of academic year. But I just think if you've got the opportunity to try things, you know, let's see it happening.

SPEAKER_05: 35:16

And I think it you need to reframe it around the budget piece is like those ideas that you said around opening for open days or or you could do experience days for A-level students coming into one of the things we say is we don't do enough education on what PBSA is. So actually if you give people an education before they come you do that. But that doesn't just have to be a cost it's part of your marketing budget. It's part of you going out and engaging with your prospects. So therefore you allocate it into your marketing budget. So I think it's you you can reframe it instead of just seeing it as a we're doing it because we've got void rooms actually we're utilising our void rooms as part of our marketing budget to do this.

SPEAKER_02: 35:54

I think you could pick your operator and your city to go and trial this with because yeah you know I'm I am conscious we had really good feedback after the episode last week primarily from operators saying thank you very much for actually speaking the truth on how the market is looking because there's still a lot of Kool-Aid being drunk by certain investors and being dispensed by agents and also from within and you know I think that's where operators at the coal face are really where we need to be focusing our attention and and really listening to them, especially during budget and rent setting. We're going to come onto that later. But those ideas of how to fill those extra rooms yes so there are going to be more void rooms than there have been for a very long time. I think that short-term lets are definitely the way forward breaking apart those term sessions and looking at semesters because university is going to have to really focus on that January intake. You have to give the students what they want and they it they typically will want you know shorter term sessions and tenancy lengths and and that's where it will play very much into the hands of a Levander and my property host or an under-the-door mat or any of the sort of tech or operational service providers that allow operators to do those short stay. Unless the operators want to do those themselves I'm seeing more actually say, yeah do you know what we'll run this ourselves. We know how to do this with language schools and individuals and OTAs and whatever it might be. And and I do think that there's more to be said there. But the rise of the commuter student, Sarah, your point there thinking about how to attract those commuter students into your properties I think that's absolutely key. I think that is going to save quite a few assets and really really improve the occupancy there because we're seeing I I I can't show you it but I've got a graph here where I can see roughly how many students I think are are commuting across the country and the number has risen pretty dramatically year on year since 2018 or so. And I think it's a real competitor now to PBSA that so many students are now deciding to study nearer home and therefore live nearer home and and stay with their stay with their parents or families. Primarily obviously domestic students but also there are st there are some international students that are doing this too. So how do we attract them into PBSA, showcase them or or BTR, showcase that this is such a great place to live and that such a value add to your life experience whilst you're at university and that you're really missing out by staying at home. And that that is where that comes you know the sort of short weekend stays or the weekday stays or whatever it might be just be a bit more creative. PMS systems are not remotely set up for this and that is one of my bugbears it's still very difficult to sell on a nightly basis when they're used to selling on a weekly or a monthly basis. So that has to change. And and there are some tech solutions out there allowing operators to do this. But I think that's the only way that you're going to be filling those voids right now and you know again looking at those marginal gains which all investors are keen on even if you're just upping your occupancy by one, two percent just because you're targeting commuter students on an annual blended basis, that will honestly start to make the difference. We are at that marginal gains piece now. It's not just you know well we did 51 week contracts and you know we're we're 45% full with those. Well then we did you know 44 weeks and then we filled up with another 20% and then we did semesters. You're going to have to really start focusing on this to get to a hundred percent because very few operators are actually at 100% at the moment.

SPEAKER_05: 39:33

But I guess it's a starting point isn't it with any new product you've got to start somewhere and it's not going to be flying off the shelves in the first year but you've got to test it and trial it and see it and then you build from there.

SPEAKER_04: 39:43

That's kind of what I was going to say as well is we've talked before about how short term let shouldn't be a plan B, it should be a strategic part and it has to be because actually like I said it a lot of it is reliant on really clever allocation models. And if you like I said if you've got void rooms now you can play with some of those things but wouldn't it be great that actually you are able to hold rooms and hold flats back next year because you've strategically decided to do it because of the benefit that it that it brings. And what I would say as well is that all of those ideas I think are equally valid for universities as well and we know universities have got void beds as well. So I think that try try it. You know you're I with all of these unless you're changing the configuration but even so they're they're very very low cost solutions really.

SPEAKER_02: 40:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 40:32

Yeah well to our listeners do reach out to us if any of you are trying anything innovative or new because we would absolutely love love to hear from you. But that's all we've got time for for this week. So a big thank you to my student halls for being our headline sponsor for the season. Your support is really hugely appreciated. Thank you. And of course a big thank you to Utopia and Washstation for coming on board again for season five. We're grateful for your support. We hope you've enjoyed listening to this episode as much as we have enjoyed recording it. I know that I've missed up catching up on all the shared living news and as ever if you have any hot topics or ideas of what you want us to cover in season five from the PBSA, BTR, co living, later living, HMOs and university accommodation sectors, please do get in touch with us at hello at house podcast dot com. We will see you next week.