Housed: The Shared Living Podcast

Q&A Special: Anti-social behaviour, Is PBSA a Help or a Hindrance? HMO Voids, Millennial parents, Desks in Bedrooms, Fair Usage for Utilities and Tax Chat

• Season 5 • Episode 10

Share episode

Send us a text

This week, Sarah Canning, Deenie Lee and Dan Smith tackle some of the questions sent it by our listeners.

Thank you to Katherine Austin, Clayre Massey, Ross Halliday, Paul Mercer, Dave Amor, Tim Stephens, Kelly-anne Watson and Sam Scott for your questions.

We cover:
- Marketing to millennial parents 
- Do desks still belong in bedrooms? 
- HMO responses to notice periods and summer void risk
- Is the trajectory of PBSA helping or hindering the future of HE success?
- Fair use utilities
- The growing reports of antisocial behaviour 
- How Councils and government can unlock affordability

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.


SPEAKER_03:

So, hello everyone, and welcome back to How's the Share Live Podcast. Now, this is the final episode in season five, and it's all about you. These are the questions that you have sent in over the past couple of weeks for Sarah, Deanny, and I to answer. However, we didn't want to leave you without your house fixed over Christmas, so we recorded a very special studio episode with some fantastic guests for next week and more a little bit later on. So in the meantime, I'm Dan ready to consult the team and the later. I'm Deanny for the Foxy Marxists. And now a very quick word from our headline sponsor.

SPEAKER_02:

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

SPEAKER_03:

Dan and team from MyStudent Halls, they continue to be incredible supporters of House, but also the entire student accommodation sector. So massive thank you to them for sponsoring this season and for coming back again for season six. We honestly could not do this without you. So do go and get your properties listed with MyStudent Halls. It is critical that you start to do that around this time because we know how important those early bookings are going to be this year. Also, a huge thank you to Washstation and Utopia. We'll hear a little bit more from them later. So let's get stuck in with some questions from you lovely people. Let's take this first one here. Sarah, do you want to go for this one?

SPEAKER_08:

Yeah, so thank you so much, Kat Austin, Director of Operations from Ebodus. She asked, over the next decade we're seeing a big shift in who the student parent really is. While in the past we had focused on baby boomers or Gen X, now we're talking about millennial parents. And Kat says she's a millennial parent with teenagers looking at university, as am I. And she says, I'm not on Facebook like Gen X might have been, I'm on TikTok, I'm on Instagram, I'm using Chat GPT. So her question is: how can we collectively think about adjusting our marketing strategies for those millennial parents who are super informed, really connected, really cool as well, can I just add, and using all these modern platforms to make decisions? How do we tailor our approach to that new demographic? So I know Dean and I would have some thoughts on it, but I thought I'd ask some experts as well before Deanny and I put our spin on it. And I just have to admit that I forgot to hit the timer. So as a marketing question, this one might go on a bit, but we'll try our best. So I'm going to hit the timer now. So I think my first sort of retort back to Kat would be we've got to think about UK parents and international parents differently as well, and those patterns might change. So I started by asking Tong what they think about particularly parents targeting Chinese parents. They said parents are crucial to decision making in the international market. From a Chinese perspective, this can even stretch to grandparents too, as many students have few siblings, if any, so the grandparents and parents place a huge amount of hope and pressure on their children. They might have pooled savings, they might have put, you know, all of their three loss, three decades of China's economic growth to allow the next generation to study abroad. So what does that mean for operators? They said that they definitely would include parents in targeting on Chinese media channels. They spend an average of 25% of total media budget to influence parent decision making. And it's important to understand the digital media usage of the older generation in China and obviously other countries if you have different target audiences as well. Parents tend to be more receptive to brand websites too. So hosting a Chinese subdomain and running SEO and PPC campaigns through Baidu to grow traffic against search behaviours. And it's important that your content matches parental concerns. So for Chinese parents, that's site and neighbourhood security. And they do mention as well integrating payment payment platforms that families trust, such as WeChat Pay, Alipay, and Union Pay. And then for kind of the UK spin, I asked Al Makin from the eWord, and he says the rise in Instagram versus Facebook is a really interesting conversation. Meta targeting is being weighted more towards insta ads. Insta conversions are up, Facebook conversions are down 2024 versus 2025. Instagram is less noisy, it's more visual, you can still get a strong message to parents. Whereas Facebook is just noisy and it's shifted to, as Al says, a wild collection of rage bait, and it's very difficult to cut through that. Couldn't it be more? No. So TikTok continues to grow. There's no data on parents specifically, but the older age group using TikTok is growing. It's completely dwarfed by under 35-year-olds, but obviously those under 35-year-olds will get older and that kind of native TikTok behaviour will grow with them. And let's not forget ChatGPT Gemini and the AI search results. We're already seeing PBSA being listed within searches like which student accommodation in Birmingham is the safest, and Google will be launching paid ads in Gemini in 2026. Expect ChatGPT to do the same as they have to monetize. Deany, what do you have to write to that?

SPEAKER_07:

Well that's a very good rundown.

SPEAKER_08:

So I don't know what else I can add, but I guess some thoughts from me is more around understanding your content and understanding who your content's going to be speaking to. And if you are running content on Instagram, yes, that some of that is going to be speaking directly to your customer, some of it is going to be speaking to parents, and we need to make sure that you've got that broad approach and you're understanding that and you're seeing that and you're looking at it from both lenses. And it might be a slight repurpose, a slight tweak, it might be maximising that content so that it can go in those different places and then you can monitor it and see what's working and what's not. I think the other thing I guess that I would add is that if you're even thinking about targeting parents, that you're doing a great job, and we don't see very many of this within marketing strategies, it very much depends on the demographic that you're targeting, and this comes down to strategic marketing. You know, who are you targeting, who's living in your buildings, who's making those decisions, who's you know, who's being influenced because parents aren't always going to be the demographic that you want to target, but you might do if it's a particular demographic, particular location, you're targeting particular year groups or nationalities. So yeah, thank you very much, Kat, for your question. Bang on time.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, sorry, just not quite bang on time. My ten pence worth it is uh so I'm over here in Charlotte at LeaseCon. So I'm in I'm in the US in North Carolina. They are so focused on the way that they market to parents, I have never seen anything like it. Now, I think what we're going to start to see is very defined and personalized user journeys, primarily using AI, you know, uh, and and that's something where you know you've pick up if an operator picks up that a uh that it's a parent, not a student, then that journey will be much more personalized to them. So I I think that that is that is the way that we are going from an AI perspective. And obviously the chat GPT side of things and and the the Gemini and the AI search results in Google, yes, they will without doubt move to be sponsored. How you can do that though, uh I I don't entirely know. I think it's gonna be really interesting to see, but that that the key sources are still going to be really important. So that is the likes of student crowd and marketplaces and you know various others too. So uh it's gonna be what certainly one to watch, but um but yeah, really, really interesting feedback there. Great to hear from uh uh the guys at Tong and the guys at the eWord too.

SPEAKER_08:

I know you want to move on, Sarah, but I do just want to add that it is this is the bit about kind of when the sector comes together about and that education piece, and we don't do it enough because this is an education piece about what accommodation is being a student and what you need to look for, and no operator is ever going to do that because it's not gonna be cost-effective, and that's when we can collaborate and work together. So apologies, but I thought that was and also universities there's a lot of marketing for universities that I think do go to parents, but is any of that about accommodation? Um and that's you know, really, really another thing I think for accommodation marketing teams in universities to think about as well. Now we'll move on.

SPEAKER_03:

Now we go to a question from Claire Massey, who is associate partner at Shepherd Robson Architects, and she is talking about study desks. So for years they've been placed in bedrooms. However, BTR don't generally include desks in rooms. So is it time to test a different location? Should they stay in flexible bedrooms, as they have for years, but maybe change to be more flexible? Should they uh still be in the flat, but possibly a spot in the kitchen with sockets to encourage socialization, or be in a dedicated shared study room that has bookable spots or a combination of the above? So, yeah, Sarah, what are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_08:

We got this question in pre-property week conference. So I did actually go and go and ask a few people about it. I think categorically, a type of desk needs to stay in a bedroom. That was quite clear, which is very interesting because as Claire's example, that's not the case in BTR, and we know that students are quite happy living in BTR. Um so they don't necessarily have a desk, but everyone kind of seemed to agree that for student accommodation that supporting study outcomes, that some kind of desk is needed. But does it have to be as big or as prominent or as permanent? Potentially not. We did a piece of work and a webinar with Martina Pardo from a designer at heart a couple of years ago now, and she was proposing study space within a flat or within a floor, and I think my view on it is it depends what it is. If it's your home, what gets really, really annoying is dragging your laptop backwards and forwards, not having your docking station, not having your screens, your keyboards, your mouse, etc. So I think that there's a case for proper study rooms in floors, in buildings, in blocks, etc., but they should be geared up so that a student can just come, a bit like you know, a proper office space and just plug in their laptop and continue working, you know, which would be great all round. We want students to get out of their rooms, we want them to integrate more. Sometimes they just need a change of space, a change of scenery, and for some students, the only other option is to go to the library, you know, which could be a bus ride away. So I do think we need to see a bit of innovation in this space. Deany, what about you? I think we need to ask, we need to do some more research. I know that we did a piece of research on this, and we did ask the question, and that's probably about two or three years ago now, and I think it would be really interesting for us to go back and re-ask that question and see what shift. And I think what we found in that research from memory is that there's still a big chunk of people that do like to study in their room, but there was lots of different places they study, which might be the university library, it might be downstairs in a study room, it might be in a group study space. So I think what we were seeing then was flexibility was a key, but there was still a standardization around studying in a room. I wonder if that shifted even further from studying a room when you've got kind of people living in BTR and seeing that there are other ways to to go and study, and over those years, you know, we've continued to see an increase in kind of academic spaces and spaces you can go and study on campus. So I think it's probably a mix of all the above, and I think it comes down to product diversity as well. Is actually we should have some rooms that don't have a desking because they might be doing a dance degree, or they might not, you know, they might want to go and study in a completely different way. So I think again it's down to product diversity that yes, some people would still like to have a desk in their room and that's important to them, but some people like me, you know, I went to university very, very, very, very long time ago.

SPEAKER_07:

But if I was in my bedroom, I'd probably be sitting reading a book back when you did those days on my bed, or and it was only when I had to go and do some property because I had a computer back then, didn't have laptops, that I'd go to a desk and study. But now when you've got a laptop, you probably sit on your bed and do a bit of that because that's what you've done as a someone just having your GCSEs and available. So I just think we need product diversity flexible, and we need more research to ask this question so we can get a proper answer.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I I think having visited Campus in Rome, so Campus great operator, where they have murky desks, so effectively fold-down desks, but they also have a certain type of furniture where you can slot in certain things to create desk space or shelf space or a cupboard or whatever you might need. And you can it's all held in storage, and then they just bring it bring out whatever you might need. So I think that we should be moving towards more flexibility there. I think the conversations that I had at Property Week and that actually we had on the panel as well, which was talking about all of the different sectors, uh were very focused on the communal spaces and how you know podcast rooms came in for a lot of stick, and so did the karaoke rooms and even uh cinema rooms as well. So I think what we're moving towards is much more open, shared space that could be social or study, and you can flip it between whatever you might want. So the more that we can see that flexibility, I think, the uh the better. So hopefully we'll we'll see more of that across PBSA, BTR, and co-living as well.

SPEAKER_08:

I went to the hairdresser a couple of weeks ago and I took my laptop and they found this like desk tray thing for me to use while I was at the hairdressers tray for my laptop. It was brilliant. So, you know, you can study anywhere, even at the hairdressers. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03:

And now a very quick word from our sponsor.

SPEAKER_08:

This episode is brought to you by Utopia, the smart building platform that helps real estate owners protect the value of their assets.

SPEAKER_03:

From ESG compliance to energy efficiency and resident engagement. Utopia turns real-time data into accent, making buildings better for people, planet, and profit.

SPEAKER_08:

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_03:

So huge congratulations to the utopia guys. Now they were up for a double award uh in at the Property Week Student Accommodation Awards, and they won both. So uh, you know, massive congrats to them. Thank you ever so much to the Utopia guys for your support. You know, we really look forward to you being our sponsors again in season six.

SPEAKER_08:

Also, well done, Dan and the team at Verberflow. We haven't mentioned it so far. We've gone, you know, like 15 minutes into the podcast without mentioning that Dan is an award winner as well. But I you haven't got the award with you in America, it got packaged safely back to India. Um, we're we're pleased to see. But yeah, well, well done um to you and the Verbflow team.

SPEAKER_03:

Thank you very much. But yeah, that was it was genuinely quite overwhelming, actually. That was that it really was one of the best nights I've had in PBSA. So yeah, very, very grateful, but it's been a hell of a lot of hard work. So really glad that it's been recognised. So yeah, thank you very much. And I'm over here in the States hawking Verbaflow to anyone who'll listen. So we're starting a very different part of the journey as well now. So it's gonna be interesting to see how that goes. But and thank you very much. It took me 21 seconds to mention Verbaflow on stage at Property Week. Paddy Jackman had a timer on it, so yeah, I'm uh impressed I managed to last 15 minutes there. So our next question is a voice note from Ross Halliday from RH Consulting.

SPEAKER_05:

We do a lot of work with him with various different clients. Hi Dan, Sarah Deanie. Great show as always. My question centres around the renters' rights bill. So with the forthcoming changes, the HMO market is obviously going to change. What do you s what strategies do you think landlords within the HMO will start to use in order to ensure that they can maintain their revenue?

SPEAKER_03:

So I know firsthand that there will be some shifts on this. And I I think that what we'll start to see is that the start, the start of the tenancy contract will be brought forward. I think you'll start to see more June to June contracts within HMO because landlords of course are going to be concerned about losing revenue if they have a contract from August or August to August or September to September, that if students can give 60 days notice, they may well give notice in uh say March and then check out at the end of May, and that means that they then have the whole of the summer months to then yeah, to effectively fill. They're not going to be able to do that in student HMO in particular. So I think that, yeah, having spoken to a few people like James Ragg at Student Cribs and Tom Ferber at Homey and various others too, I think that they are bringing forward those those contracts. So that's one of the ways that they're that they're looking at um uh filling those voids that they may experience over the summer, but some of them will also put up rents potentially. We're not seeing a huge increase in that at the moment. We've been tracking a few of those prices, so we're not really seeing landlords be pretty unscrupulous and and really whack those rents up to make up for that. But who knows? It's all gonna play out over the next year or two because some of these uh this all sort of comes in next year and then the year after in terms of the tenancy lengths. So it's gonna take two years to flush through, but yeah, we'll we'll see. Uh Sarah, Deanley, what were your thoughts on on this one?

SPEAKER_07:

I think agreeing with everything you just said there.

SPEAKER_08:

I guess my only thought, and I think we said this before, is that the impact of ongoing loss of supply is if you're a HMO landlord that has traditionally rented to students, wouldn't you just go out on the rental market and not take the risk and you can then just let it go to the next tenant that wants it when it comes available? I think that will depend very much on the location. There are some areas that are so heavily student that generally other tenants may not want to to live in that environment. But I agree it's probably going to be worth a shot, isn't it? To see, you know, to see if you can get kind of 12 month wraparound revenue because otherwise, of course they're going to put the rent up. Like that that has to be the inevitable byproduct of the Renters' Rights Act, I think. But that doesn't stop you as a landlord, it doesn't stop you then renting to students. Students are just doing it on the open market and they just have to be available when they want it. And then it might be that if it comes up in May, March, you might get a work professional, you might get a student, you might get whoever. But anyway, as you say, I think we'll see how it pans out. But yes, I think in certain cities that's going to be more prevalent where there is massive lack of rental housing and you just rent it to whoever needs a home to live in a land. Yeah. But also, as we've seen previously, landlords have done discounted rent or you know, half rent, etc., over the summer months, anyway, a lot of the time. So I don't think there's any rules in the Renters Rights Act against them not doing that. So it might be that they'll be able to get some revenue over the summer months, even if it's not full revenue, rather than have those void periods. So it might be that they just get really, you know, really clever and innovative in trying to encourage students. And I think that'll particularly come in when you've got a house of sharers where some want to stay over the summer and some don't. As soon as somebody gives notice, that's everybody that's out. But actually, they could say, well, actually, if two of you want to stay, you know, there might be a deal to be done rather than have those void periods as well. So I think it'll be interesting.

SPEAKER_03:

It's gonna be really interesting. We're seeing more institutional capital plow into HMOs, and I think with good reason, because there is still definitely an opportunity there. We are seeing some attrition with the sort of mum and pop landlords selling up because of the forthcoming EPC legislation, the energy performance certificate uh legislations, where you have to hit a certain EPC level uh within your uh property and portfolio, and of course with the renters' rights bill, and and no, you know, nowhere more so than Nottingham, where there's there is quite a big attrition there in student HMO. But I think this is just going to take probably 10 years to really flush out, but during that time we will see much more uh institutional. capital come in Brookfield have just just joined the party. There's several others as well. So I think it's really it's going to be a really interesting space to watch. My concern is that it will mean that we have a slight loss of affordability at that, you know, at that more affordable end in HMOs if they do all sell up because then students will be effectively forced into PBSA. Great for PBSA or BTR or Code Living, but yeah it's going to be a challenge. So thanks Paul for that question. And now a quick voice note from Paul Mercer who's director at Kaplan Living.

SPEAKER_01:

Hi Sarah Deany and Dan it's Paul Mercer from Kaplan Living here. My question for you all is the trajectory of the PBSA sector helping or harming the stability and future success of the wider university sector?

SPEAKER_03:

This is a juicy one. So I think PBSA post-COVID and the post-COVID boom got carried away and I think a lot of investors pushing their rents beyond 10% in any city totally destabilizes that city and the university performance as well. And I think that's what it exactly what's happened. So we've seen it in various different places Bristol, Glasgow you know etc where the pricing has got too hot and students now are questioning the value of their degree by go uh at going to those universities and I think we will see a medium term shift away from some of those universities because of the cost of living and the cost of accommodation in particular. So when times are good and investors are pushing rents beyond 5% I think that is a bit of a dangerous game. I feel like we're now starting we've we've matured as a market and we are now starting to see that we have to focus on the longer term investment investor return profiles and that is anything from a sort of you know a naught to five percent increase year on year is potentially tolerable. Anything beyond that realistically is going to drive students away from PBSA potentially into BTR but those prices are normally mirrored from PBSA and I think that it just ends up destabilising the market because university halls then think all right PBSA have really pushed their pricing what can we do about it as well everyone then gets a bit greedy and it destabilizes entire cities and so I think yes PBSA the trajectory previously has potentially hindered certain cities appeal I would say to to students I don't think that is going to be a long term thing though. I think it was a post-COVID boom and I think this normalization of demand means that everybody is being much more rational and if I can take one thing away from Property Week it was effectively that the phrase that I was using was positive realism. And I think that that is where the industry needs to be we need to be very realistic in terms of the investor returns that we can generate how difficult it is to build and run these properties but we also need to stay positive about it. So I think it's a it's a fine balance Paul to answer your question but uh but yeah great question nonetheless thank you.

SPEAKER_08:

I think that's great because that's a very positive response Dan I guess my only concern is that that reputational damage of can I afford to go and study in the way that I want to go and study and therefore get the experience of studying in the way that I thought I was going to get it the way that my parents told me what their experience was going to university is not the same. And that creates a cultural shift in how a generation probably is starting to see what higher education is and I think we need to be realistic too about the impact of that and work hard with our universities to kind of re-engage people in that conversation again to say actually there is that benefit of living away studying away and I know this is a conversation that we go a bit deeper into on our special episode um next week but I just think we need to recognise that we have in all those impacts that have happened we have caused a shift in how people view higher education and how they go about getting higher education and we've got to combat that. I don't think it's fair to only talk about PBSA in this conversation. I think the cost of living I think property rental prices overall has got to you know impact you know higher education. I think we need to mention widening participation as well. I think universities have done you know really well on this you know in recent years, you know, supported by some initiatives from UCAS but sometimes that only goes as far as the first year and then what happens to students in the second year and the third year as well where do they live then you know if their accommodation might be subsidised by universities in the in the first year. So I do think that we need to kind of when we talk about higher education success we need to look at how students can sustain a lifestyle over the whole course length not just the first year you know and that is very prevalent when you start then talking about HMOs and PBSA and build to rent as well. So I don't know the question about helping or hindering it I guess it's really really difficult one Paul.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh it's too polarizing to say uh yeah yeah to say it helps or hinders I think it's it's it's grey PBSA by design should be helping with more affordability technically because it's increasing supply and options like students want choice we know that whether it's BTR co-living PBSA Uni Halls student HMO whatever it is and or whether they commute and I think the issue that we have is that it does a lot of this does just come down to the affordability piece because we can provide as many podcast studios and karaoke rooms as as needed but I think that the affordability is absolutely key so when we're not delivering that and when we're pushing rents too high it is just totally screwing the sector and and it will I I do think there are some cities that will have a massive hangover from pushing their rents 23%. Glasgow's you know prime example of that but ultimately Glasgow is quite popular for development right now it's where we've done four development reports in the last 18 months and so you know it needs needs to take quite a long time to actually do. So we know that we know that that is you know there is more supply creeping up there hopefully that will improve the affordability but yeah everyone just got a bit carried away in the post COVID boom I think. And now a quick word from Washstation. Washstation proudly sponsor this episode of Housed we provide best in class laundry solutions that complement your buildings Washstation smart green clean thank you very much to John and Katie and the team at Washstation for supporting us in season five we look forward to welcoming you back as sponsors in season six in January so do get in touch with them if you have any laundry needs if you're refurbing or putting in a laundry from scratch John and the team will look after you very very well. So our next voice note is from Dave Amore from data provider Higher Insights hi Dave Amore from Higher Insights here.

SPEAKER_04:

I was wondering what you guys thought about how we can better understand the impact of student accommodation and that living experience on overall student experience. I think we're missing the trick with many students spending as much or more time in their accommodation as they do at university just wanted to get your thoughts on how we can better understand it and and and kind of use it to the advantage of universities and accommodation providers to give students a better experience.

SPEAKER_03:

I yeah I think we're so bad with data still and we're bad at surveying students. There's some really good surveys out there obviously investor in students and the global student living index and and of course the property marketing strategist euphorum that I definitely wasn't just reminded about but but no I I think that there is a real gap in the data that we have and you know whether that is qualitative or quantitative it is just something that we need to get much much better at really understanding the the overall experience so yeah Sarah Deanney obviously with the with the sort of vast experience that you've got of actually speaking to students which again I'm still not sure that many BBSA or BTR or co-living operators actually do. But what are your thoughts on this one?

SPEAKER_08:

I have been asking this question after this research since I joined the PBSA community and my first job at campus in villages and there is a little bit of data out there which the stuff that I've seen is going back many years old now and obviously most of the general kind of data is saying that actually living away does benefit your academic success it benefits your experience and what you achieve but there is not enough data on it with the investment and volume of funding that goes into PBSA it it's still amazing to me it's not there and I used to fight this conversation that campusing religious can never get the funding to do it and I think we'd love to go away and do this piece of research if someone wants to come and help us fund it so please don't get in touch if you do because it's absolutely a key question. I think it goes back to the question that we were talking about before is that actually as a sector where there is kind of a there is a cost of living crisis it is becoming not a yes I'm going to go and live away can I go and live away how do I make this work you need to fundamentally show what the benefit of that is and data and research is the way to do that. We do talk about this next week in our special episode particularly around the value and spoiler alert sometimes things are prioritized in PBSA marketing over and above the value of actually living there and that really needs to be redressed and we know it's very difficult with multiple stakeholders constantly asking marketeers to prioritise incentives and this and that but actually we do need to get better at what what the value is of you know living away at university whether that be on a university campus or outside the university campus this is probably one of those things that the sector needs to come together and you know do do more of and you know and do it and do it better. There's some kind of hangovers I guess of what the student experience was like you know we referred to it earlier in this podcast and we refer to it in next week's podcast as well but that is quite different you know and you know and as Dave alludes to um students are spending much more time in their accommodation because they're probably not out partying so much but they're not just spending time in their accommodation they're probably spending a lot more time in their room as well you know you could argue what's what's somebody's living experience like when they're not at university as well because you know is it that much different if actually all of their experience is centred towards the convenience of staying in your room and being on Netflix and being on FaceTime and having everything you know at at your fingertips and it probably goes back a little bit to Claire's question as well about desks inside inside rooms as as well you know everything has changed probably apart from the student room it's still a desk a bed and a wardrobe and what we've talked about a lot today already is everything around it has changed the lifestyle has changed for the ability to change priorities have changed and types of students have changed nationalities have changed yet the product really hasn't moved on that much good question thank you very much for that Dave if anyone's got any needs any insights into higher education Dave is your man uh he totally understands all of the data and it's not just the HESA data that he's interpreting he goes way beyond that.

SPEAKER_03:

So um yeah do get in touch with him for you know university trends etc I plug him there because he's notoriously bad at plugging himself so our next question is from Tim Stevens at Amber and he asks when is the PBSA industry going to turn in uh going to turn to a fairer charging model uh not only in terms of rent but in terms of driving operational savings do you think fair use rebilling of utilities will catch on in PBSA why doesn't the valuation of assets have a link to energy efficiency after all it would go straight to the bottom line interesting obviously we know why Tim is plugging that from Amber it's an interesting one I think that there are some big opportunities I was talking to Jamie Lewis who runs Code student accommodation and I think they've got a couple of thousand beds or so across the Midlands and they've got individual meters in each room and therefore they can offer effectively a fair use policy whereby they can showcase to students look you're either green amber or red in terms of your energy usage let's work with you to bring that down because you know otherwise you will get charged. I don't know if that's you know they then move that on to actually say here's your bill for for getting uh for going over and above the the fair usage policy I'm not sure how quite how far they've they've taken it but it was just really interesting because uh you know a lot of operators do not build by the room or do not have uh individual meters in each room so yeah it's I think that's where there is an opportunity firstly for to make properties more sustainable of course and to improve lifestyle choices of not leaving your window open and your heating on and things like that and using as you know less electricity things basically all of the things that would make you more sustainable in your student life but of course the primary focus will for you know investors in particular will be the bottom line as Tim says so yeah I do think there's a an opportunity there but of course retrofitting meters into each individual room or looking at the likes of Utopia there is a capex cost to that so it it's just weighing up the pros and cons. But I do think that a fair use model is something that should be you know expected for students you know in the medium to long term.

SPEAKER_08:

What did you think Sarah Dean I I agree I think I think with there's a lot of data out there there's some amazing companies doing some some great things collect the data like Utopia for example and then obviously Amber can help with your your your bills and reducing them I don't know if the sector is just paralysed by data and not knowing what to do with that data. You know if I was an investor I feel like utilities and energy efficiency would be the first thing that I would look at in my very simplified brain and you know that's that seems very obvious probably when you look at as many student accommodation buildings as we do I was in one the other day and uh they have the heating in the room set to 23 degrees oh my word I couldn't breathe in that space and that is not comfortable for me. My house is usually between when the heating's on between 18.5 and 19 degrees it doesn't go above that and I'm very comfortable in that environment you put me in a 23 degree room that window will be open and it will be open all day in fact we stayed over proxy week in Wembley in a BTR flat it was it was too hot I had to constantly keep opening the windows and the patio doors so you there it's just obvious really really I'm I don't I don't know Tim is the answer why why are valuation of assets not linked to energy efficiency because it it just doesn't feel like it's a thing anymore. You know we all know in our homes how to make our homes more energy efficient. We all know how to keep our bills down.

SPEAKER_07:

It's been drummed into us but the same doesn't seem to apply to you know large scale residential buildings really I am beginning to think that this all-inclusive bills uh approach that we have is going to be one of those things in history that we look back on similar to the fact that we flush our toilets with drinking water is going to be like why the hell did we do that?

SPEAKER_08:

Because in a world where we are trying to be greener we're trying to be more sustainable that we enable people to have as much energy as they want without consequences to the use of that energy seems utterly bizarre and I you know when I was at university I lived in a Victorian house and we had a coal shed in the back and we used to have a coal delivery and I didn't go in Victorian times but this is a true story and we had a weekly coal delivery and we turned our heating off and we had a very very warm lounge because we had a coal fire working in the lounge and we basically spent most of our time in the lounge and then you'd go out to Arctic to go up to your bedroom to go to sleep but that's how you learn and similarly I live in a very not very efficient house now and I when I left London we'd renovated a house we had an ultra efficient house we moved to an old cottage that's been badly extended without any insulation but my kids now like you Sarah if the heating goes on and it's too hot they're too hot they can't sleep they can't because they've adapted to and and but yet we're enabling students to live in 23 25 degrees heat and they're getting used to that so therefore they're always going to want that kind of level of heat so I think the more that we talk about this and we haven't talked about it a lot over over the year several times it kind of feels and I think I did say this to Ben Utopia at class is that and I've said this before we are the sector is ripe for innovation in this and yes you can't go and retrofit in it is costly but if you're building now you really need to think about this you really need to think about what the future is so I think I've yeah I think I over the year I've been trying to battle this question and I think I'm coming to a point where we need to we do and I think the great thing is that we now have more long-term capital and institutional capital plowing into PBSA, VTR, co-living etc and also into HMOs.

SPEAKER_03:

So I think we're going to see in spite of the fact that on a global level it's not as you know ESG and and uh energy management isn't necessarily as popular as it once was maybe pre-Trump oh I've got to be careful what I say here. I think generally I was worried about actually getting into the country I was screening LinkedIn posts I I didn't actually delete any but yeah anyway I'll be long gone by the time this is published so it's fine. But I think that long term capital is going to be very very sustainability focused and it's not just going to be that we have to worry about the capex of you know I'm gonna hold for hold this investment for three years. I think there's going to be much more capital looking to hold for beyond five ten twenty years and that gives them the opportunity to say well let's start this from scratch let's do a capex project to put meters in every room to put sensors in every room to really focus on that energy management to change the boilers to do all of the typical sustainability capex that are required and then get the data out the back of it and and this is what Tim will be also alluding to here getting that data using it to make operational decisions and trying to automate that where possible so I think there's there's a there is a real opportunity for this new long-term capital to be far more sustainable so hopefully they all start to uh to take note and you know will we see bill splitting coming up again I don't know that's a tricky one especially when PBSA has to fight against BTR and co-living as well from a value perspective but you know quite often BTR does so that's going to be really interesting to see so yeah thanks for that question Tim our next question is from the lovely Kellyanne Watson who is managing director at the Class Foundation and it is a voice note so let's hear from Kelly.

SPEAKER_06:

Given how central land values are to the housing costs do you think the UK should rethink how land is owned Taxed or released, and what reforms would generally shift affordability?

SPEAKER_03:

Love this question. So I I I think we've got it all wrong. I think we need to be focused. We've got so much land banking going on, which is where people are effectively just sitting on land that should be developed. I think we need a land value tax to come in in quite a big way to stop people land banking and just waiting for the right price to then develop an urban uh project. Very different for anything agricultural or woodlands or anything like that. You know, if it's greenbelt, fine. Like, you know, I think there's a there should be separate cases. But if you're sitting on an old car park or, you know, a derelict property or or whatever, and you're not you're not moving it on because you, you know, you're waiting for either the right-off. I just think we need to be taxing uh anyone who owns land and uh you know anyone who owns land that could be developed in either a town or a city centre or nearby so that they do have an incentive to move that on because yeah, otherwise we're just gonna uh snarl up the uh and we need to incentivize that that from a planning perspective as well. I I think we need to ensure that planning is quick enough that if you are going to get taxed on your land, you can move it on to a developer very, very quickly. It would totally change the uh development environment, and they need all the help that they can get. You know, we we we cannot build, developers cannot build right now. Um, and so I think there there needs to be a land value tax that that comes in in in quite a big way.

SPEAKER_08:

I would go to the other end of the sector, and one of my favourite topics is later living, and I think affordability could be shifted by incentivising older people to free up their large properties and move somewhere more manageable and smaller, but we need more retirement living to enable older people to have somewhere viable for them to move on to and smaller, you know, smaller properties, and that doesn't necessarily all mean apartment living. You know, we've discussed before that that's not suitable for every single older resident in the UK, um, and older people are getting older, so people have teenage children you know into their 60s, you know, so that kind of sort of multi-generational living is kind of it's moving further further back, but people are living longer, so they need those bigger family homes later in life, um, but then they're keeping hold of them. And I just think that the more supply there is, the more affordable everything gets. Um, so that's what I would do. And I did, I think we said this that I think in the budget I expected there to be some kind of incentive in stamp duty to encourage older people to move, and there wasn't, but where would they go? So I don't know that we're quite there yet in encouraging that older generation, but that is a reform that I would impose. Uh I think the only thing I'd add is I think we need to be more proactive around planning because planners know that these pieces of land are there, they know that, especially if they're they're kind of grey belt, that they can be or brownfilled that they can be utilised, and there should be a plan that says actually there's a piece of land there that can be developed and it would be great for these purposes. And actually, if you come to us with this as a planning application, it's going to be whisked through and approved because we know we need it for a local community, which then encourages landowners to actually go forward and make that approach or know that actually it's going to be a positive outcome. So I think that and you know, I'm not a planner, but having more proactive approach about understanding the land that's around you and how you want to use that land for the needs of your community, which would push through kind of planning applications on that basis, and and also just greenbelt is is a massive issue around land development, and obviously we want to protect our green spaces, but not all green spaces are the same, not all that greenbelt is the same. So, some kind of classification of actually yes, this might be greenbelt, but actually, of all the greenbelt, this is a probably a better piece that we can develop, but this one actually definitely can't be touched. So, again, that people can understand how they can use their land and and develop it or move it on in that way so they're not just sitting on it. I just want to share um something that could that could be looked at. It's a bit of a scandal in Bedford at the moment, and that is that our council, and I assume that this is replicated across the country, owns loads and loads and loads of real estate, and some of it they make revenue from, and some of it they don't make any revenue from. There are unused, um, unlet retail units that arguably they're asking for too much rent if nobody's in them, so that would be quite an easy way to make more revenue. But there are others that are just in poor condition, um, that they've just not done anything proactively. So there's a pub that they decided to buy for whatever reason, and it's now costing the taxpayer to pay a£200,000 a year for this empty pub to be sat there and be maintained and security. We've got a debonums that the council decided to buy that's costing£450,000 a year in security because the council bought it. So I would argue that shifting affordability could lie actually with the councils in the boroughs with housing prices that could be freed up for housing. I'm glad you both look confused by it because it's absolutely bad.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh no, don't. I I know I've got several councils who have bought old Debenham's buildings just because they they can't see it go to ruin. 450 grand is a lot for security, let me be really clear, but still. So that they're four four fantastic ideas, if if we do say so ourselves. But we know that the government just aren't going to be dynamic enough, or councils aren't going to be dynamic enough to really take action on this. And I think it's it's so oh, this is I I genuinely think we could have actually done an episode on this one question alone. And and when it when the question came through, I was like, oh, that's quite general. But then I was like, oh no, hang on, she's hit the nail on the head there. This could solve so many of the issues that we've got as a sector, get people building, get the you know, get more money for councils as well, and actually enable town planners to do what they should be doing. Like you said, Deanny, what literally walking around and saying, Oh, that that old car park or that old you know office building that is disused, why don't we switch that into Resi, into office, into a put a school there, or put a multi-story, whatever it is, like just actually get Britain building again. I think that is that is the key priority that each council should have. But they're all on the treadmill, they're all panicking, they're all flat broke, and the government has to empower them in some way, shape, or form. So yeah, I really enjoyed that. Um that was uh good question. Thanks very much, Kellyanne, for that. Now, there was one question that we we didn't really feel like we could possibly answer personally, so so maybe this is one to sort of throw out to the sector to discuss it. It was from Sam Scott from Fresh. So he's the the MD of Fresh. Oh, incidentally, just a very quick tangent. How nice was that at Property Week to see Jane Crouch get her um uh award. Oh, it's great, wasn't it? And you could see how emotional she was and how much it means to her. And anyone that speaks to Jane knows how much the student accommodation sector has uh does mean to her and the positive impact that she's had on it. So yeah, well done, well done to Jane on a lifetime achievement award. Um and I think she goes into the Hall of Fame, doesn't she? That's the um that's the great thing. I'm not sure what benefits you actually get from that. But anyway, so yeah, so I spoke to Sam at Property Week about this as well. Now it sounds like there is more antisocial behaviour going on than normal, potentially, and actually this is something before Sam even mentioned this to me. I've seen it on uh various different news articles about antisocial behaviour, and it sounds like there's a lot of cuckooing going on, sort of, you know, basically gang members, it seems like, are preying on vulnerable students and befriending them and then effectively either forcing them out of their student accommodation or using them as a sort of uh an in to then effectively create havoc, various different ways that they are doing that. I think drugs is probably one of the potential uh uh potential uh issues that we're seeing here. I think that may be linked to the likes of county lines that are moving beyond you know school children into university students. And so I've seen a a fair bit of bullying on TikTok as well, um, which I haven't liked. I think some of this is actually in Leicester. Uh that's that's where I saw it. So that's really one to for the sector to start thinking about how we how we are uh dealing with this, what it actually looks like, what it actually is each time, how we're working with the police. And Sam mentioned to me that uh the key focus for um whenever Fresh see anything like this is data sharing with the police. And I think that all PBSA need to come together and make sure that they have very quick and accurate data sharing with the police whenever there is any incident whatsoever, um, or the potential threat of any incident. So I would just encourage that. I think there's more to be said on it. Um, but but yeah, you know, without us having the actual specific answers to this, because obviously we no one wants to see it, but how much we are actually seeing it in the sector, I I I don't know. So I think we have if if we can start to hear from people about that, that would be great because obviously we need to find a way to nip things like that in the bud, make sure that we're sharing as much data as possible with the with the police and the local authorities as we can, um, and really supporting any residents that are in danger or that are vulnerable, um, and making sure that they yeah, they aren't preyed upon by uh some uh nefarious actors. So so yeah, that's one to think about anyway. Uh did you guys have any thoughts on that one at all?

SPEAKER_08:

I think just what you said, Dan, and just I guess it's making sure your teams have got the support. And again, it comes down to that collaboration across the sector, that if there's issues impacting the sector, that we all work together to be robust about how we drive change in those areas. And I think just by raising it and talking about it, that's you know, well done, Sam. And this is one of those things that you know shouldn't be kept yourselves and you know, all go away and talk about it and show it.

SPEAKER_03:

So thank you very much to everybody who got questions in. Really enjoy getting those in. And that was a really varied sort of set of questions there. Um, so for us, that is a wrap on season five. Thank you very much to all of you for listening and engaging with us so fantastically. Um, please do share that content. So just flick it on to your teams or anyone else, any colleagues in the sector. It really does make a difference when it gets shared far and wide, and it just helps us do what we do even more. So we're looking forward to getting more listeners for season six. Please do join us then for all the news, views, and insights, and that will be starting again in January so that we can have a very quick break over Christmas. Now, a quick mention hot off the press. Sarah and Deanny are launching their first marketing coaching course in February. So please do check out Property Marketing Strategists LinkedIn page or their website for more information. If you're an employer, this will definitely add value to your marketing team's development. And they're often overlooked when training is concerned. I think we focus very much on facilities management primarily and the operational side of things or sales training, but marketing definitely needs the help. So if you're a marketer, make sure you speak to your line manager or um anyone in your senior team, your HR department. Find out how your individual training budget can be best used. And our little Christmas present to you is our special bonus episode next week, uh, where we look back over 2025, but more importantly, probably forward to 2026. And we're doing that with some industry powerhouses. We've already recorded it. I absolutely loved it. Um, it was it was a really, really good episode, I think. Uh so we had Jenny Shaw and Timothy Owen from Birmingham University, Stephen Willis from TechSkill, um, and of course, Sarah Dini and myself. Um, so make sure you subscribe so that you get to listen to that next Friday. And as an extra tip tree, or maybe not. Uh, this one was filmed too. So we'll add it to the House YouTube channel next Friday. I'm definitely going to have to start using my emergency shirts on the back of the door now if we're going to film all of these on uh uh for YouTube. And all that leaves us to say is thank you ever so much to our headline sponsor for this season, my student calls, and sponsors Utopia and Wash Station as well. We hope you have a Merry Christmas and we look forward to seeing you in the new year.