The Amenities Battle - what is BTR without them? The Missing Middle Excluded from Shared Living, Affordable vs affordable, Void Room Innovations and Where are all the University Courses Going?

In this episode, Sarah, Dan and Deenie deep dive into;

- The battle of amenities
- The missing middle
- Affordable vs affordable
- Being futurists
- Void room innovations
- And where are all the university courses going?

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 Sponsors And Setup
• 1:09 Market Data: Costs Up, Builds Down
• 2:14 BTR Panel: Affordability vs Amenities
• 6:05 What Makes BTR Different From Apartments
• 9:15 Operating Costs Of Amenity Spaces
• 12:26 The Missing Middle In Rental Housing
• 17:24 Identity Risk For A Premium-Only BTR
• 21:05 Construction, Capital, And Underwriting Reality
• 24:36 Utopi: Data, ESG, And Efficiency
• 26:10 University Cuts And Course Closures
• 30:35 AI, Graduate Outcomes, And Subject Demand
• 34:56 PBSA Risk: Fewer Students And Hybrid Learning
• 39:00 Data You Must Track Before You Build

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:00

Hello everyone and welcome back to How's the Shared Living Podcast. This is the tenth episode in season five. We're delighted to be back once more with some brand new content. I'm Dan Smith from Resi Consultancy and Verbalflow AI.

SPEAKER_03: 0:12

I'm Daniel Lee from the Property Marketing Strategists. And I'm Sarah Henning from the Property Marketing Strategist.

SPEAKER_02: 0:18

And now a very quick word from our headline sponsor, MyStudentHalls.

SPEAKER_01: 0:22

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

SPEAKER_02: 0:34

Dan and the team from MyStudent Halls have been supporters of House since the beginning. So we're really grateful they're here once again as headline sponsors of season five. Anyone working in student accommodation is most likely aware of the importance of listing their properties with My Student Halls for those all-important leads as you get towards selling your rooms for the next season. So yes, please do reach out to Dan and the team at MyStudent Halls, get them into your budget for 2026-27 leasing season. And also a huge thank you to Wash Station and Utopia for coming back and sponsoring Housed once again. More from them a little bit later. So, Sarah, the Movers and Shakers breakfast. Uh now I know you were invited by Tim and Nick from Amber. That's Amber the Energy Guys, not uh Amber the Marketplace. But how was that? What was uh what was the outcome from it?

SPEAKER_03: 1:24

I've not been to a movers and shakers event before, and I was really grateful to be invited. It's a lovely setting in the Savoy for breakfast. But the the main event is the is the content, and we we started with some data and being shared from Marcus Dixon from JLL. Fairly kind of negative about the kind of real estate sector. Headline stats such as build costs have risen 34% in the last five years, whilst house prices for sale have increased by 25% for a house, 12% for a flat, and regionally only 2% in London, and even Kensington is minus 12%. So that kind of painted the picture really as to you know why build has really slowed down. The biggest shortfall in building is in London, the south east and the southwest, as there's the lowest house price growth. And what I found really interesting, maybe because I used to work for a house developer at the beginning of my career, and we were you know targeted to sell off plan, but now people are buying literally at completion stage. So developers aren't freeing up that cash flow basically to build the next development. They're having to wait literally for the development to be complete and people to buy at that stage before they can free up their cash and move on. So that's really kind of slowing down the momentum of house building. We then moved on to a panel discussion, kind of really focused around BTR, really. We had Mike Williscroft from Bistory Group, Fiona Fletcher Smith from LQ, Alex Taylor from Telford Living, Michela Hancock from Hilltop Property Partners, Jo Andrew from Enfield Council and London Councils, and it was chaired by Simon Scott from JLL. So it was it was really focused on affordability as well as you can see by the panellists. One thing that really interested me that I wanted to talk to you guys about, and I didn't get the chance to ask the question on the day, but Michela said that reducing amenities in build to rent will bring down the build cost and therefore the rent levels. Now we get told time and time again in PBSA that there's no point reducing amenities, it doesn't reduce the build cost, and planners insist on amenity space. So, yeah, Dan, am I missing something? Or why would those rules be different for BTR and PBSA?

SPEAKER_02: 3:38

So we'll let you all in on a little secret. We were just really having a debate off the record about that, and it's not as clear-cut as as I think we we first thought. Normally we would just have that out in the open, but we don't want to be dismissive of anyone's comments or thoughts. We want to really make sure that we are taking those into consideration. Now, if you take out all the immunity space in BTR, you're left with an apartment complex with very little community. There's no space for the community there, and that I think is the real struggle. Yes, you can eke out more revenue, and and therefore, maybe overall the cost becomes slightly more affordable, or most likely that there are better returns there for. But I I can't I think that that amenity space is all important. Does it need to be that massive, you know, full bottom floor? Maybe not. Maybe you do end up with some ground floor apartments or studios or whatever, but I I still think there needs to be in BTR co-living, especially, there needs to be some form of amenity space. So I don't think it's as simple as what um Michelle has said with you know reducing those amenities, bringing down the build cost, because I don't I think obviously making the uh on the under right, adding extra rooms in where there would be amenity space, I I I can understand that that would generate more returns, of course, and every room needs to be considered, but I think that's where it starts to become just a simple apartment complex. And is that really what we need? Is that really what what people need right now? Are they looking for community? Is that is that what they want? Is that what BTR actually is? Could it just be a sub sub segment segment of BTR that you don't have any amenities? It's on the affordable end, or it's just an apartment complex. Ah god, there's so much to run at with that. I I'm really in I'm really interested to see some some more of the stats behind what people actually want in BTR. I'm actually off to the BTR conference at LD events uh in a uh in a couple of weeks, so that'd be interesting. But yeah, Deanny, what are your thoughts? We've just we've just talked round that for about 15 minutes ourselves, which has given me a nice little monologue. But what were your thoughts?

SPEAKER_03: 5:52

I guess the first thing I guess I want to talk about is the difference between an apartment complex and build to rent. At a base level, it's built to rent, is exactly what it says in the tin. It's built for people to rent. If people can't afford to rent it, then you don't have places for people to rent and therefore they don't live there. So if there becomes a way to build it in a more cost-effective way that means people can rent there, then it becomes a product model that people can buy and need, and we know people need. And community comes in lots of different shapes and forms. It doesn't mean that you can't create community if you've got smaller social spaces or smaller places places for people to congregate. And we've said time and time again that invariably these build-to-rent places are in city centres where there's a myriad of different places you can go and build a community and can congregate and get together and do things as long as you've still got someone that's helping to do that. So I think it's again about product levels, isn't it? It's about not just having one type of product level that sits at a certain price point, it's about saying, yes, there's some build-to-rent properties that their brand is focused on community and their brand is focused on amazing social spaces and amenities, and they come at a high cost. But that doesn't mean there isn't a place for an affordable build-to-rent place where people get the same security that you get in build-to-rent, that you know you're not going to be kicked out, you know someone's not going to come along and say, actually, I now need this place, you've got to go and find somewhere else. But you've already got a community because you have come from that city, you've lived in that city, you've got friends, you've got places where you can go and and meet people, and you've also got a sense of actually Friday night is cinema night, and a group of people from the complex are going to go down to the local cinema, and we've got a special rate with the local cinema. So there's lots of different ways you can build a product, but the big thing for build rent, which we don't talk about enough, is that it gives rental security. I think it would also be remiss of us with Utopia as the sponsors not to talk about the additional cost of running massive amenity spaces. And I imagine, and anecdotally, we know that something like a co-working space within BTR is really well utilised during the day. But there are lots of other spaces within BTR that probably aren't utilised during the day, and they're being heated, air conditioned, you know, lit, run the whole time. Um, so I think there would be cost savings in those kind of spaces as well, um, as well as the actual kind of non-revenue driving spaces. But Deanny, what you were just saying actually and was discussed on the panel discussion at the Movers and Shakers Breakfast, which was there still feels like there's this missing middle that's not being accounted for. And I think we see it a lot in PBSA as well, is you've kind of got the top level, you know, high high rent places, you've then got in kind of social housing, you know, for rent, and they're eligible for people that are on lower incomes and on benefits, but you don't really have those spaces for people to live who are on lower incomes but not eligible for benefits, and that's where I think this kind of lower amenitized build-to-rent space could really kind of come into its own, you know, and otherwise we don't see a diversity in the product, and you end up with kind of people from very much the same background all living in the same place, the you know, and these kind of more city centre luxury spaces. And I think it'd be really, really damaging for BTR if it becomes a luxury product. It's a bit like a lot of later living, like you know, a lot of later living places are super fancy. So you've got the super fancy, luxurious, you know, chandeliers and swimming pool kind of places, and then you've got the kind of council-run care homes, you know, and there's not really that kind of quality of later living in the middle. So I I think it's right to call it out, you know, the difference between affordable with a capital A and affordable with lowercase nature.

SPEAKER_02: 9:55

It comes down to build costs like and what makes the numbers stack up for BTR, PBSA, co-living. The numbers stack up at the higher end of the market on paper, not necessarily from an occupancy standpoint once you've actually mobilized it. But it's really important that we have that cross-section of from affordable right the way up to premium. But that at the moment, primarily what I'm seeing across BTR, co-lipping, PBSA, we're filling the premium end of the funnel because, as I said, that makes the numbers stack up. Everyone then, you know, obviously uh ends up on some kind of affordability sliding scale as the premium end fills and then you know uh realizes that actually their occupancy might not get to where they thought it would be, or they're pricing people out the market, and then they have to recalibrate, at which point the you know, the mid-range has to recalibrate, and then that pushes down into affordable, and then so and so on, so on. I think if you're building from scratch, yeah, you could you could jettison all the amenity space you want and put in 12 studios instead of having a large social and study space, but at what point does that become a real issue for people wanting to live there? So I mean I I think that we just need a multitude of options here for renters to to choose from. And the affordable sex is not sexy, the premium end really is, but I can't see that filling the top of the premium funnel is going to bring about obviously more affordability in the short to medium term, long term, yes, I would hope so. Keep you know building and the rents will hopefully start to drop, uh, you know, as we've seen in various places, but it it just comes down to what it's so difficult to build at the moment, you know. I I think that whole mantra of build baby build, which is championed by the housing minister at the moment. Who's building? Like, how can you build? And and I think when it comes down to some of the more affordable options, yes, you can leave in BTR, you can leave like the quintains, the get livings, the the Grangers at the sort of mid to top range, but I'm not really seeing anyone pioneering that affordable uh either from scratch or retrofitting or converting. And so, yeah, that that normally happens by assets getting a bit older and a bit more tired, underwrites being recalibrated, rents being recalibrated, and and like I said, everyone's sliding down that affordability scale. So to build from scratch, yes, strip out all the amenity spaces and put in studios, yes, of course that would make it cheaper. But what will that do for the long term of the sector, especially when BTR is still relatively fledgling? I I don't know. And at what point do you talk about BTR as being amenitized or just a simple apartment complex with absolutely zero amenities or services, etc.? It's a very different ball game. Equally, it's all renting, so yes, build to rent. I I do get that. But yeah, I I think that's where the identity crisis might just creep in a little bit uh for BTR, I think.

SPEAKER_03: 13:10

Based on that, if we build for the high end and that by default slips higher end properties that are built on a model for higher end returns have to are forced to then slip into a lower pricing bracket, that either makes them viable or non-viable. If they can still survive and make money, and then it's viable. And I guess what we're saying is actually the world's changed since we first designed the first BTR building and what we think and know and love about BTR, because it is very difficult to build, it is really costly to build, but we're still pricing that and what we've always known, as opposed to saying, well, actually, is there a different way to build this in the current pricing structures that we have?

SPEAKER_02: 13:58

I think with the longer-term capital coming in, as long there's there's long-term capital in BTR. So they can kind of sit on some of these voids and some of these questions of how amenitized should we make this and actually do we need this, do we need the cinema room or the smoothie bar or whatever it might be, or the yoga studio, or do we just make the rents cheaper for everyone by putting in another five, twelve, whatever studios or or apartments? And that's you know, it's it BTR is still a fledgling industry, um, and I think that's something that we'll we'll need to work out with time. I I don't think that filling the premium end is the only way for there to be an affordability slide. I'm there must be some way of building more affordable, whether it's you know, methods of modern construction, modular, etc., or whatever else. I I still don't think that we're eking out every last you know marginal gain from construction right now. But I don't think anyone can be bothered, in part because it's it's so difficult and it seems like you're swimming against the tide, no one else is really doing it. So why wouldn't you just build premium and underwrite that? And you know, it depends on your covenants. All of this depends on your covenants. If you're building from scratch, you're making sure that you've got a good funder so that you know if you don't quite hit your revenue or your occupancy targets, that you know you're not going to breach your covenants at 80 or 90 percent occupancy. You need to be able to sit in and around the sort of 60, 70 at least for maybe the first year or so, and then go up and build up from there. And I think that's where you know BTR still needs some work. You know, I haven't seen many BTR properties really sort of fall over based on that, but I think in part that's because as and when there are occupancy challenges, they fill with students, and you know, it's not it's that's not a secret anymore. Um, and certainly something we'll be covering at Property Week on stage. But yeah, I I think we we've talked in circles there. It's a really interesting point from from Michela. And and I do think there's there's something to be said for that affordable sector by getting rid of some of the amenity space, but equally, what that does for the long-term health and sustainability of the sector, I don't know. Is that really going to move the needle that much on making a property affordable? Would it then sit in the mid to premium range rather than the premium range? I think that's that's the issue that you've got. So yeah, great. You know, that sounds like a really good uh really good session. Look forward to my invite from uh from Tim and Nick at some point.

SPEAKER_03: 16:28

Now let's hear a quick word from our sponsor, Utopia. This episode is brought to you by Utopia, the smart building platform that helps real estate owners protect the value of their assets.

SPEAKER_02: 16:42

Utopia turns real-time data into acne, making buildings better for people, planet, and profit.

SPEAKER_03: 16:48

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_02: 17:01

So I was on stage with utopia at the Class Foundation, and uh Chanel Turner Ross did an incredible job on stage of getting everyone super excited for really the next iteration of what Utopia is. There's Utopia Lite now, which is uh effectively you know ESG data management and uh report production. Then you've got of course the hardware and the sensors that you would put into each room and give you full control over your data and energy management, the heating panels, the radiator valves, the if you have you know any energy requirements uh and you want to understand how your buildings are running, how to make them run cheaper and more efficiently, then do reach out to the team at Utopia. And thanks very much for sponsoring this series. So we all know that universities are facing huge financial pressures at the moment. Those cuts are being felt right the way across the country. We've you know, I've seen in recent days pretty much every university is lining up redundancies in some way, shape, or form, whether that be course cuts or any kind of operational cuts. And it's going to be really interesting going to the Cubo conference on Thursday, the Cubo Winter Conference in Birmingham, to see what the morale is like uh at universities. Some of them are doing brilliantly. They've got excellent teams, systems, and uh, you know, they're they're performing really well, but I'm not I'm not convinced that that's the same across the board. Now, one of the cuts that we've seen uh it was at the University of Leicester more recently, and you know, within weeks of starting the academic year, some of these students were told that the entire modern languages department and film studies courses were under threat of closure. That's moved beyond that now into yes, we are going to we are going to close them. Uh obviously strike action began straight away. I know there's a there is a formal consultation underway, it will last until February 2026. Uh now, University of Nottingham, they've also announced plans to close their modern languages department and 47 other courses. So, you know, that's that's a very big part of the East Midlands that will probably lose access to modern foreign languages at at university level. Now, the wider impact of this is how can students plan for the future if they don't know if their course is going to survive? It's something we've talked about quite a lot on house already. But you know, this is just being compounded by the recent announcements by University of Nottingham and Leicester. You know, are there going to be immediate cuts, you know, with limited days on campus, or what does that look like? If the degree is honoured, are students going to lose the appetite for their course after so much uncertainty and uncertainty and leave leave anyway? Yeah, it's it's a really tricky one. Now, I I've got a lot of thoughts on this because I think there's a lot that's down to AI in all of this. And you know, it's I think that there is so much volatility and decision paralysis with students not knowing what course to choose because they don't know if they're going to have a career at the end of it. I don't think it's as simple as don't choose to go and be a lawyer or don't choose modern languages. There's nuances for everything, but I think AI is one of the biggest disruptors here. But I've looked into it, modern languages have been falling for quite some time. Um, I think because of the direction of travel of AI and how simple translation has become. So I don't think it's purely AI driven. In spite of that, the the CEO of Duolingo came out recently and said, actually, it's young people using our app more than anything else, and they want that sense of community, they want to go to a new place and and build those friendships by being able to talk the language. But I can't help but thinking, and I was it was actually it was actually Ben Roberts at Utopia I was talking to this about where he just got some new AirPods which have a translation function on them. So when someone's talking to you, it will translate exactly what they're saying. And I can't help but thinking, even though I am you know speak a few languages and I am so pro, yeah, I wouldn't say I'm a polyglot, but I've I've lived in France, I speak German, a bit of Spanish, Italian, and I think that would be incredibly sad if it did disappear, but I totally understand why that may be the case. I just think this is going to be endemic of what will happen across universities because they'll all be looking at what's going to be the graduate outcome for this course. Are they going to get employed immediately? What's that salary going to be? What's that going to do for us? Translating does not pay particularly well. It will pay even less with AI coming about. And the you I think Leicester and Nottingham are thinking our graduate outcomes are going to look pretty bad if we're still just focusing on these modern languages. Let's focus on the you know the courses where we are going to really show that we can produce the graduates of the right caliber who are earning the big salaries, etc. etc. And I think that is playing into a lot of these decisions. Sarah, what what were your thoughts?

SPEAKER_03: 22:18

I think the main learning from it is that you know, if you are a PBSA operator or if you're a landlord, you're looking to invest, you've got to be super, super close to the universities in your city because this has a massive, massive impact. I mean, you know, Nottingham dropping 47 courses, well, what what does that look like in relation to student numbers? And okay, they might not drop them properly for another three years, but that's kind of the timing that people are looking regarding planning as well. So if you're looking to build in a particular university city, you've got to understand what their trajectory is, what they're planning to do, and you know, you've got to have those meetings before you put a spade in the ground. We we hear a lot of the time that you know a lot of developers don't, and it really annoys universities, but you know, that it's gone way beyond that now. It it has to be part of your due diligence to work out what the trajectory of that particular university is. You know, if if they're gonna continue to make redundances, then something has got to give, and that's courses. So therefore, you're gonna have less students, therefore, do you need as much accommodation? And I think, even like you just said, Dan, within that three-year cycle, how disruptive is it of those students that have just started university that they've been told we're gonna kill your course, but we'll we'll honour your degree, it'll probably be alright for the next three years. You know, there's gonna be disruption. Um, you know, you were just talking about strikes and you know, potentially lowering days on campus. So if that's happening, you know, students can commute. I mean, we we worked with a client in in Leicester a few years ago, and there were students that were commuting from London to Leicester because it's a direct train, and actually they only had to be on campus two days a week. So, you know, you can't just look at the headline numbers, you've got to look at the future of the university, and you've got to understand the campus requirements. We're working with a university client at the moment that has made it policy that the students don't have to be on campus more than two or three days a week, you know, and their set days for the entire year, which enable students to work, which is, you know, very I'll say the word woke. I don't think I've ever said the word woke, but it's quite woke of the university to understand that and to give the students the experience of being able to fit in work as as you know, as well as learning, but there's also got to be a financial implication for that university that actually their lecturers are working less days per week. So it benefits both from a financial point of view and potentially benefits the students. So I just think you know those it's got to be collaborative, you've got to really, really understand your you know, your local market. You just can't build because you know, we've talked about the perception of numbers and data before, you know, th those headline numbers hide a myriad of things. I think the problem with languages is that languages are disappearing from schools anyway. You know, my children will only have the option of learning French and that's it, and they don't have to, it's not mandatory, so actually it's totally understandable that we've got to remove languages at the higher level because there's no funnel to lead them up. And I guess yes, AI is part of that, the education system is part of that, but fundamentally I think that we're moving to a world where less people go after university, and that is something that as you say, Sarah, operators, developers, and those working to house students need to understand and consider because the landscape that we've known and supported and thought was the right landscape for the future generations is changing. I mean, total aside from real estate, but AI is having a massive impact. I still genuinely worry that we're gonna lose the ability to think for ourselves and have critical thinking and know how to search for information, and that's something that we as a society I guess need to protect ourselves against so that it's not just the machines doing the thinking, but is my personal opinion. I think I actually read a study recently on that that is a real risk to society that we're just gonna forget how to think.

SPEAKER_02: 26:35

I I completely agree with that, but I think that's a long-term problem. I don't think students will give a crap about what that might do for lot for the long term. I think they will be focused on what's my job going to be when I actually finish university. And it comes back to what I always say, and and no, I'm not being disparaging towards them, but would I study a law degree right now, even if I was thought I was, you know, an amazing solicitor, lawyer, and training? I I wouldn't personally, because that industry is going to be completely up-ended. So is any kind of content creation, and I know that marketing is obviously very close to your hearts, but of course, things like graphic design, all of these, all of these careers, and literally every career is going to be touched by AI in some way, shape, or form. Some are going to be completely remodelled and transformed, and some are going to see less of an effect. There's all kinds of stats out there in terms of which jobs are going to be the most affected by AI. And it'll, you know, I don't I don't see AI really coming for everyone's jobs, and you know, we're we're going to need some kind of national basic income to um to survive. I I think that actually it's going to be about learning to work with AI, but students don't know what that looks like because universities have been incredibly slow to showcase that, to say, right, if you're going to do a law degree, then you need to learn to use you know these tools, and this is how we're going to implement this within each module. And you know, towards the end of it, yes, when you start to look at your career in your third year or whatever it might be, that's when you'll start to see that some of those entry-level roles they've either dried up or they've changed, and I think being able to adapt quickly is not the strong point of any university or any higher education sector, especially the UK. And I think that stood us in good stead in previous years. I do not think it does now. This is an absolutely pivotal moment, and I think the universities don't have the leadership, and this is you know, this is going to go out after the Cubo conference, because I'm sure I'd get some stick for it uh if I was there, and people have listened to this. I just think that universities don't have the overall leadership from within the government or from within themselves to really showcase what that change is right now and should look like for the benefit of students in and their graduate outcomes, but also for the benefit of the higher education sector. So, yeah, this is this is going to be this is going to have a big impact on universities. It is also by proxy going to have a big impact on PBSA. Dini, as you said, with you know likely less students going to university, choosing that route, more apprenticeship degrees. I know you're a big advocate of of that, and and so am I from what I've seen so far. So I think we've got a lot to contend with, and then you combine that with 2030, and the demographic dip starts again. There'll be less 18-year-olds going to university. And I think that's that's something that is not really talked about enough. I am concerned for the sector beyond 2030 to a certain extent, but I think we'll just have to pivot. We're again, we'll have to recalibrate rents and we'll have to think about what our demographic is, who's actually going to be living in these properties. So all PBSA need to be thinking about the next ten years. Rather than just the next one to two years. And that's why thinking about having that long-term capital within the sector and you know really demanding more from your investors and the banks and the funders to say, look, we need to be in this for the long term. There's going to be some you know challenges that are thrown up, there's some headwinds, of course. But you know, the this is what we think will happen. This is how we want to withstand those shocks. And it's looking at, and Sarah, you mentioned about it, you know, the fact that you can't just build it and they will come. You have to really focus on what's being studied at that university, etc., before you build. I don't think those conversations go on enough. I get asked to do them by investors and developers, but that's only focused on nominations agreements. Any, you know, whenever a developer or investor comes to Resi Consultancy about that, it's typically to say, Well, we need some kind of uh nominations agreement with the university, can you help us out with that? Rather than, could you tell us what the most popular course is at that university? What's that going to look like in an era of AI and a focus on graduate outcomes, and where are the redundancies at the moment? What are they recruiting for? What are they really heavily advertising on those international portals? And you know, you look at Cambridge and Oxford, you know, yes, of course, they're you know, they're pretty much ranked top in terms of modern languages. Then you've got York, Bristol, Cardiff. If they start the Jettison modern language courses, that's a significant number of students that won't be going to those universities. So certainly something to be focused on. We need to get granular on the data. And you know, for any clients that that we've got, or if I was running an operator right now, I would be seriously looking at the courses that my students were studying and looking at how to future proof that. Because if you're over-indexing on law, modern languages, graphic design, whatever else it might be, you do need to be a bit concerned about what that's going to look like in two to three years once these this current cohort has gone through.

SPEAKER_03: 31:56

Just going to be really, really boring about that. And a lot of the problem is is that a lot of operators don't have the data because the data that they're inputting isn't accurate enough. The PMS or booking systems aren't necessarily, don't have a course field or it's not compulsory, etc. etc. We have to do a lot of audits, and a lot of the time we can't make head nor tail over that data. Um so they've got to get better at capturing their own data before they start looking at external data as well. Um I know we've got to move move on. I think what I would just say, and this is a conversation that we'll have to come back to, but you do have to really consider, bearing in mind everything we've talked about today, what the future of PBSA is, and actually, you know, like we said before, is it that restrictive planning permission that is actually the challenge here? And if you just start building for people in a city, you know, in a BTR co-living-esque way, you know, actually does that future-proof, you know, your your property? It's not a discussion for today, we've covered it before, and I know we'll cover it again, you know, but it might be in some cities with some universities that actually it's not, you know, viable to have buildings that are a hundred percent for full-time university students. And I think that's the point is I think we genuinely need to look at the future and look at the makeup of how the future's gonna be and how people are gonna study, because they're not all gonna be full-time students, they're gonna be studying lots of different ways, picking up things they want to do. And I mean, I don't like to give Elon Musk any airtime, but I think he was he said this week that actually people will choose to work in the future and there won't be currency. Don't really understand what that means and how that comes about. But there is a there is a changing world out there and and people will go to apprenticeships. And I think being practical with your hands is something you can protect against AI. And where those jobs are there, that's where people are going to go because that feels like you're safeguarding your future there. So I think we need to stop looking back at the past and we need to look at the future and and plan for that.

SPEAKER_02: 34:12

So some challenges there, there could be some major headwinds, but we just need to be mindful of the fact that we we have to start thinking long term here. Now, a very quick word from Wash Station.

SPEAKER_00: 34:22

Washstation proudly sponsored this episode of Housed. We provide best in class laundry solutions that complement your buildings. Washstation. Smart, green, clean.

SPEAKER_02: 34:33

Thanks so much to the team at Wash Station for sponsoring this season of House. Really grateful to have you on board. Know you've done extremely well over the course of this year. I'm glad Housed has helped to play its part, but equally, I'm sure that it is more to do with the quality of service that you guys are offering any operators looking for laundry. So do get in touch with uh John and the team at Wash Station. Now, on to some positive news. Uh, we now know of operators who are trialling some innovative solutions with their void rooms, including uh turning larger studios into twin rooms. I've got direct experience of that, so that's going to be an interesting one. Um advertising nightly rates for commuting students and upgrading larger studios to proper dual occupancy studios. Now that's that's great to hear. I'm wondering, is there anything else that we should be aware of? I mean, Deanny, Sarah, have you heard of uh examples of each of these? And do you think there's anything else out there that we could uh we could turn to?

SPEAKER_03: 35:32

Yeah, I mean a lot of of this we're actually seeing with with one of our clients at the moment. They've got void rooms and they've just decided to try some some different things, and we're like, thank goodness, what an amazing way to use your void rooms. Why wouldn't you? You've got literally got nothing to you to lose. You know, those rooms are not generating any income at all. You know, and we're talking about really, really cost-effective, like low, low-cost innovations here. So nightly rates for commuting students, the only income that you need to put into that is um some bedding and some, you know, and some some towels, really. You know, a student that's coming for one night or two nights isn't going to bring all of that and you know, and kitchen packs. But you know, if you're doing kind of summerlets or short-term stays, you'll have all of that stuff anyway, you know, and the same, the kind of the conversion from you know, into twin rooms and student and you know, dual occupancy, there's a little bit of you know investment needed in additional furniture, but actually, if it works, then that's just an investment, you know, it's a capex investment effectively moving forward. So, you know, really, really welcome and yeah, you know, keep keep telling us, um, listeners, um, what else you're you're doing because when the going's good, you don't get a chance to try these things because you've got full occupancy, so then there's very little that you can do because if you've got someone in room, you're not going to mess with that. So, really, you know, we know that anecdotally most buildings have got 15 to 20 percent void rooms, do something with them. And I think this comes down to the conversation we were just having is that this is about the future, and we've said for probably the last three, four, five years, we need more flexibility, we need more flexibility. If you've got void rooms, use them. You know, there's a certain arrogance to just go, oh well, things didn't quite work out this year because of X, so therefore we'll just carry on doing the same. There's the opportunity to be flexible, to be innovative, to try new things, as as you say, Sarah, with with very little risk. And I think there's enough data out there to show that actually there probably is a market for this kind of flexibility, there is a market for different models, there is a market for for these kinds of changes, and now's the time to try it and test it so that we can see see what is going to work in the future and learn those lessons now.

SPEAKER_02: 37:49

On that topic, Set Sarah Deany, you've just launched your cost of living youth forum insight. So, what what can you share about that?

SPEAKER_03: 37:56

It was a piece of work that piece of research that we've come back to, so we have done it in the past. I think it's always good to kind of test where things are and where they've changed. The kind of headline data from this research is that 48% of students say they are struggling financially. Although, interestingly, that percentage is reduced compared to when we did it in 2023. 39% have a part-time job, um, less than in 2024 and 2023 when we last asked. What we don't know is if it's side hassles or included, or what is considered to be a part-time job. 48% exceeded their accommodation budget, mainly because they didn't want to compromise on location. And 76% feel that all the inclusive bills will help keep costs down. And laundry and travel costs are surprising, additional costs not usually considered. So I think that it's you know, it it's a really interesting data set. I think there's more to it than just people are not really struggling financially anymore. I think there's probably a part of normalization. I think there's probably more students that aren't accessing university that would have done before because financially they can't. So I think there's a lot, a lot open to discussion there, and again, it's great to have this data and to see how those trends are changing over time. Yeah, and you can download the report and watch the sound bites from our focus groups by going to the property marketingstrategist.co.uk insights. And by the time we um launch this podcast, we will have also hosted our Youth Forum Cost of Living launch webinar as well, and which will be available to re-watch on our YouTube channel.

SPEAKER_02: 39:28

Amazing. Thanks for that. Do go and check out that link. Now, the last episode of this series in a few weeks is going to be a special QA episode, as we've done at the end of every season. So if you've got a question you'd like me, Deanie, or Sarah to answer, or if you want us to get an expert to answer it, or you've got an idea of a topic for us to discuss, please do email hello at cowspodcast.com or send any of us a WhatsApp, a voice note, or an email. We want to cover all of those different asset classes within shared living. So we want your questions about co living, ETR, PBSA, university accommodation, HMOs, and rented later living. The juicier and more controversial, the better. Thanks as ever to my student Paul's for being our headline sponsor and to Utopi and Wash Station as well. We'll see you again next week.