Housed: The Shared Living Podcast

We Called It: Which 2025 Shared Living Real Estate Predictions Were Actually Right? (Or Wrong!)

• Season 6 • Episode 1

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At the start of 2025, we made some bold predictions about what the year would bring for shared living, student accommodation, renting, and higher education.

Now the year is behind us — so it’s time to look back.

In this episode, Sarah Canning, Deenie Lee and Dan Smith revisit our 2025 predictions:
- what really happened with the Renters’ Rights Act
- whether the government made progress on its 1.5 million homes pledge
- how badly universities were affected by financial pressure and redundancies
- whether affordability improved (or not) across renting and student accommodation
- and what international student demand actually looked like in 2025.

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.com - 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.

And our brand new sponsor:

Howden  - With a lifetime of expertise, Howden provides tailored insurance, property risk management, and wellbeing solutions for accommodation providers across the UK.

The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of their employers, organisations, clients, or partners. This podcast is for general discussion and informational purposes only. Nothing said should be taken as professional, legal, financial, or investment advice. While we aim to be accurate, we make no guarantees and accept no liability for decisions made based on the content of this podcast.

SPEAKER_05:

Hello everyone and happy new year. We're back once again for a brand new season of How's the Shared Living Podcast and it's season six. We will be with you for the next few months to bring you the latest news, views, and insights from the rented shared living sectors.

SPEAKER_04:

So if you work in and around the PBS LAVT, co-living, university accommodation, HMO and rented later living sectors, you certainly come to the right place. I'm Sarah Cunning from the Property Marketing Strategists.

SPEAKER_07:

I'm Dan Smith from Bresci Consultancy in the AI.

SPEAKER_03:

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

SPEAKER_05:

Let's hear from our headline sponsor, MyStudent Halls.

SPEAKER_02:

Housed is sponsored by Spotlight Boost on mystenthalls.com. Use Spotlight Boost to stand out in search results and drive more leads to your properties.

SPEAKER_05:

We are incredibly delighted that Dan and the team from MyStudent Halls have decided to be our headline sponsors once again. They're such a key part of the student accommodation marketing cycle and have always been great partners to us at House. So thank you once again for supporting us. And a huge thank you as well to Wash Station and Utopia for coming back and sponsoring House once again. And excitingly, we would love to welcome our brand new sponsor, Halden, who are joining us as a sponsor of season six. More from them later. Hopefully, you've all managed to have a restful festive period. But we can also see that you've been listening to our special episodes from December. So thank you all for your listens. And if you haven't yet, they were great episodes, so please catch up on them. So Deanny, Dan, what have you been up to the past few weeks? I was thinking this is probably the longest we haven't spoken to each other for about a year, really. And Dan, you're in India at the moment. What what are you up to? And did you did you get there for New Year?

SPEAKER_08:

I got there on just after New Year's Day, but so I flew out from Heathrow on on New Year's Day. Um yeah, I had a really lovely festive break, Bodhi's first Christmas, and just really lovely to to spend some uh good quality time with uh family and friends. Then I I was drafted in to go to uh Delhi and Mumbai with the Verberflow team. Um so we had a bit of an off-site and a strategy session, but it's really I just think really important to come out and see the office, see how the team uh collaborate. And I think that's one of the things that we really need to make sure that we're focusing on that collaboration with our office teams. So I'm just here seeing exactly how they're uh how they're getting on, um, setting a strategy for this year. Obviously, we're expanding into new markets and things, and yeah, I think you you all know that I absolutely love India, I have a real love affair with the country, and um and so yeah, I've thoroughly enjoyed the last week or so that I've or five days or so that I've been here. But I if you're watching this uh in some way, shape or form, I I look absolutely terrible. I'm desperately trying to stay up for my red eye flight so that I can actually sleep through it. So yeah. But no, really, really nice time. Well, what about you, Deanny?

SPEAKER_05:

Um I had to take a switch off from work really, so I had a nice end to the year, really, and um took proper breaks, spent time with family and friends. My daughter has officially run off at the circus, so I spent a lot of time at circus where she was performing at Wookiee Hole. But all good. All good, yeah, and ready to get back to it, I think, now. We're all all seeking out the routine, I think. Yes, absolutely. So this week we're going to be taking a look back over 2025. We we remembered that we had done a predictions episode at the beginning of 2025. Um, so it was Deanny's bright idea to look back and see whether we were right or not about those predictions. So um, so strap in and and see what we were right and what we were wrong about, and then next week we're going to be looking forward to 2026 and and kind of creating more of those predictions. So the first thing that we we predicted um at the beginning of 2025 was about the renters' rights bill. Um we said it could be a major change to to renting and more competition about uh across PBSA, BTR, co-living and HMOs. We were right about the ambiguity, the timeline slippage, and that competition would intensify, but we were wrong about timing, but I think everybody was wrong about timing um as well, because we expected it to hit in 2025. We thought that there would be implementation chaos, but in practice and the Royal Ascent landed late October and the rollout is going to be in this year. So, yeah, what's your your reflections on that really? Could we have called it any differently, really?

SPEAKER_08:

I don't I don't think so, really. It I think it it still rings true that it's clear as mud. I know that's what that's what we said. Yes, PBSA has exemptions, but we don't know what that overall impact is going to be on the entire sector from an HMO space. You know, there's a lot of talk of these June to June tenancies to mitigate any revenue loss by bringing that tenancy date, start date forward. Because obviously, with 60 days' notice, students can potentially cancel in April and leave by June. And if it's a September to September contract, that's gonna cost them three months worth of revenue. So, yeah, expecting to see more uh June to June tenancies, but what that actually does who who knows. I think students are going to start looking for more flexibility overall, um, but it wasn't it wasn't really sort of chaos uh ultimately. I I think it's that is definitely going to come next year, and I think it's going to be fascinating as to what happens with regards to when HMOs really go to market and what that looks like if we have queues around the block and whether those tenancy lengths shift, whether students have more flexibility. So you know the HMO market is going to be definitely affected in some way, shape, or form. We are overall expecting to see some more attrition. PBSA is obviously exempt, but we're expecting that you know maybe students will want more flexibility if they're being offered that in HMOs. And of course, BTR on Co-Living can offer that opportunity and flexibility as well, but they are beholden to the Renters Rights Act. So overall, it's going to be quite a lot of upheaval, I think, over the course of uh this year and next, as you know, it was sort of more preparation this year, uh in 2025, and and yeah, 2026, everyone is really sort of quietly adjusting that product and and those sort of tenancy assumptions and those operational models. So what's this space? But I think we were pretty pretty good, you know, lots of ambiguity. We we knew that. I mean it's that's quite an easy prediction to to get right, but um I I knew that we weren't going to see you know any exact uh results just yet.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, agree that we were completely wrong that it'd be one of the biggest shake ups for the sector because it didn't happen this year, so because of the timing it didn't shake it up, but that's obviously going to massively hit this year. So even though we've had that year's warning and we had that grace period of a little bit later, I still, whilst people are doing their due diligence, are looking at it, it still feels like people aren't that well advanced, even though we know it's coming, we've got a bit clearer around timelines, but it doesn't feel that we've really grabbed it by the horns and we know exactly what we're doing. So but I'll save the rest of that till next week. Yeah, a prediction's 2026. And I think the you know, it's not going to impact really this the students who are already renting this academic year, which is probably why we haven't seen that impact. But obviously, people are advertising rooms and flats and houses now for people to move in in September. So those changes do need to be made. I mean, we talk to students all the time and they're they they still know nothing about it, still not seeing loads of stuff out there about it, lots of support, lots of content about it. So, yeah, as Deanny said, let's save that one probably for a prediction for 2026. But I think we were as right as we could have been with the information that we had at the beginning of 2025. We're just going to hear from one of our sponsors, Utopia.

SPEAKER_03:

Utopia is the trusted partner for high performance asset management, cutting energy costs, reducing risk, and delivering proven ESG results.

SPEAKER_07:

With billions of data points and 75,000 rooms monitored, utopia turns real-time intelligence into measurable value, protecting investments and driving continuous improvement.

SPEAKER_04:

Choose intelligence that delivers. Choose Utopia.

SPEAKER_05:

Thank you to Utopia for being such value partners of Housed, and we wish you an even more successful 2026. Right, on to our next prediction. Well, we were talking about Angela Rayner's pledge to build 1.5 million homes. I mean, that's that dates anyway, doesn't it, really? Um, I don't think we'd have predicted no, we wouldn't we couldn't have predicted that Angela Rayner wouldn't be at the helm and for the reasons why. I don't think anyone could have seen that coming. But we we discussed basically that um how much could be delivered in the first year and whether building new homes would meaningfully affect affordability. Dan, I seem to remember that you were talking about planners and you know that that the 300 planners is a drop in the ocean, to quote Dan Smith. Planning reform and construction capacity constraints make 2025 delivery unlikely. And I think we were pretty much bang on, really, but the first year ramp up was just not there. You know, and and I don't think, and yeah, we didn't expect it to be, you know, how much more has come through, you know, planning, how you know, how much impact those additional planners have had to, you know, to the market. But one of the clearest signals was net additional dwellings in England was actually down from the year before. So actually, we still need clarity on what homes are included in the numbers. We've discussed over the last year that later living and PBSA are excluded from those housing numbers, how much impact would have been made on those numbers if they were included. So certainly a bit of ambiguity about what counts as an additional dwelling or a home, you know, but certainly that first year we haven't seen that ramp up that we should have, although we, you know, as a podcast, we didn't expect there to be. We also talked a lot about kind of planning reform and the need for planning reform and how we didn't expect that to happen quickly, and thinking that it's been 12 months on, and I'm still no clear on what the planning reform is or how that's going to impact that house building, which is quite depressing, really, that actually we so desperately need this. Everyone seems agreed that this is what we all need in this country, but yet we haven't made any progress on any of it. And as you say, Sarah, the house building numbers, you know, that have now got more to build this year and the following years to achieve their target.

SPEAKER_08:

Uh on the housing delivery, I just don't think this surprised anyone. You know, you you don't fix a structural undersupply problem overnight. So 2025 definitely proved that, but dropping 300 planners in there, that is, as I said, a complete drop in the ocean, and we have seen that have zero impact. So there's been no um there's been no clearing of the bottlenecks. It is, you know, everybody is still stuck at certain gateways. I know that's you know, talking about BTR and uh and PBSA in particular, uh seems to me maybe easing slightly for some. But overall, it's it's you know, what are they gonna do? Are they gonna actually get to the point where they realise that they have to fold those BTR and PBSA numbers in in some way, short, or later living or co-living uh into those numbers in some way, shape, or form? Uh yeah, absolutely, because at the moment they're gonna be between 40 and 50% shy of their target at the end of parliament, which means that everyone in the housing department that's declared it needs to resign. So, yeah, it's it's we're still no further along. There's still no root and branch review of the planning system, which is what there needs to be, and and I think that's something that we've we've got to start to see very quickly. For the government to have pinned, you know, a lot of their mandate or you know, the sort of their their manifesto on these 1.5 million homes, where where are they? Where are they gonna come from? We're not seeing any updates. Steve Reed, the housing minister, hasn't given any sort of further updates and isn't charting progress, and what we really need to see is a bar chart of progress of as to where that's up to and what we're gonna do to fix the you know the the the planning capacity, the skills, those you know, materials, delivery confidence. Nothing nothing has happened at scale at all. And that's what needs to happen. This isn't just you know, oh let's do a few quick wins here and there. This is a root and branch review that's needed if you're gonna deliver 1.5 million homes. So uh it you know, 2025 did highlight that those specialist sectors, like PBSA and like later living, they're still not properly understood uh in in the wider housing conversation, and I think that's you know, until that changes, we're still gonna see those misleading debates about homie how many homes are actually being delivered in the first place. But you know, we're not gonna see the government make a huge amount of progress in terms of hitting those target numbers anyway. So yeah, uh I I wish them the best of luck, but I uh I can't see any major movement at the moment, and there's nothing, it doesn't seem like there's anything in the pipeline with regards to root and branch planning reform and really clearing the way for more development and you know, more homes that people need uh from an affordability perspective, but also just in the locations that that they're needed.

SPEAKER_05:

I think towards the end of the year of 2025, I think we did see some isolated examples of planners kind of over overturning objections and and plot and granting planning permission. And I know that there was also you know a kind of I guess a sweeping review about that homes that are being proposed near stations should be approved, you know, with without debate really. So I think I think it's coming. Um well it has to, you know, absolutely has to, but like we just said, with a kind of you know, down, you know, numbers being down for 2025, it means that 2026 has to deliver something quite exceptional, you know, and moving forward um to get there. So yeah, I think again, we I think we would have liked the result to be different, but I think we called it pretty, pretty bang on that it wasn't gonna um have the desired impact that it should. Um, right, let's hear from one of our sponsors, Wash Station.

SPEAKER_01:

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

SPEAKER_05:

Wash Station are the go-to supplier of laundry solutions in the shared living sector. So we're delighted they are sponsoring Housed once again for season six. Thank you so much. Now the next prediction that we had is is slightly difficult and tricky because of of the stats. So I will, yeah. Basically, we were discussing the troubles in higher education and the impact on accommodation. So we explored how pressures on universities, redundancies, finances, falling student numbers might affect demand for PBSA, co-living and BTR. We were quite bullish with with those predictions, and we did call out continued restructures and redundancies, and we even said it's not it's not if, it's when on a failure or a forced merger from a university. So we were absolutely right about the sector-wide financial stress and job cuts. You only have to do a you know a search on on the internet to find out how many universities, if not all of them, um, had you know redundancies and culled some of the courses um as well. Their regulators' warnings about widespread deficits became mainstream with 40% of universities running deficits. And there's obviously market public discussions about mergers increasing. And towards the end of 2025, we we did see that big merger between Kent and Greenwich. So I think that I guess mitigated a closure. So if they hadn't have merged, we probably would have been right with our bullish assumption. But actually the merger was, I guess, promoted as a positive move, you know, and created, you know, obviously there were job losses, but it's created more opportunities in that part of England, you know, and I guess consolidated all of their efforts into merging those two universities. Um, so yeah, Dan, you you were always pretty grim about universities for the whole of 2025. So it was justified, I guess.

SPEAKER_08:

It was, and and uh and and actually even even today, very early January, we're already seeing you know the deficits being reported by these unit by big universities, Russell Group Universities as well. Um, some of them doubling in death deficits. Uh, it is not looking good out there for many universities. I we don't have that collapse moment that we thought potentially could happen in 2025, where a university sort of goes to the wall, files for bankruptcy, or at least is rescued by the government or whatever might happen in in that scenario. But yeah, I I know what you mean, Sarah. I I don't know how much the merger between uh University of Kent and University of Greenwich uh is sort of real long-term strategy planning and you know really focused on that sustainability, and how much it's more of a yeah, uh a survival tactic, uh I would say. And I'm not, you know, neither of us are suggesting that this was an enforced merger, um that the government got involved in any way, shape, or form. Um, but neither of those universities uh, you know, really had the healthiest of finances, uh should we just say. So I think there is there's probably going to be a lot more of those uh coming up over the course of the next couple of years, I would say. There's only so long that these deficits can continue to go on before uh you know some of the covenants start to be breached uh on certain loans, and uh that you know universities really do start to struggle. So I I think what we will probably see is the rise of the supergroup. Um so groups of universities probably in you know similar locations starting to merge, starting to then cut courses, cut costs, cut staff. Uh, and having spoken to people at both of those universities in Greenwich and Kent, you know, obviously there's a lot of redundancies. Um there's of course a typically uh a post-merger in any way, shape or form, there's normally some kind of voluntary redundancy uh scheme, but then it will move on to uh forced redundancies, and I think that's something that we just need to be cautious of there and careful about how we talk about it as well, because it's really unsettling for anyone in the higher education sector at the moment. Having done the the Cubo, one of the Cubo keynote speeches this year, uh sorry, last year in 2025, I can see the morale is not great, and that is very understandable across the board because they're under so much pressure, uh, and whether they're accommodation officers or you know in the support services uh or in catering or events or whatever it might be, there is a huge amount of strain and pressure on jobs at the moment. Um, and so yeah, I think 2026 will probably bring about more of the same. I think there'll be not necessarily, you know, uh uh uh it will it won't necessarily precipitate a waterfall of mergers, but I do think there will be more mergers, there will be more groups created to oversee certain universities and probably create more specialists. And so universities will it in my opinion start to become much more specialized again. You're seeing some universities cutting courses already. So part of that will be down to uh universities thinking about graduate outcomes um uh as well as uh the fact that the courses are loss making as well. So it's gonna be an interesting, turbulent time. I uh you know I'm just a a bit a bit concerned as to how we talk about the the sector and therefore how we talk about the fundamentals of PBSA beyond that as well. If we can't talk about a healthy higher education sector, how do we talk about a healthy PBSA sector?

SPEAKER_05:

I think the other thing about kind of I guess how we talk about it is how the sector is being perceived by students because we know how much research goes into you know finding a course and finding a university and finding a city for students. You know, all of this talk about courses being cut, about redundancies, you know, that's surely going to be impacting students' decisions to be going to university, you know, and that's before you even throw in the affordability angle, you know, which we know is you know has a huge major impact as well. So I think there's a big kind of PR crisis really with higher education, whether that be internal regarding staff and support staff, or whether it be from a student and parent point of view, you know, we discussed, I think it was at the end of 2025 about kind of the Smidlands and how the universities there, you know, none of the major universities are going to be providing modern languages courses, you know. So then you kind of start to be thinking, well, if you're going to be studying modern languages, you know, across the country and other cities, is there a risk that those courses won't be going ahead? You know, so that I think we need to keep a really, you know, really firm eye on on what's going on in higher education. As you said, Dan, that definitely will impact um student accommodation numbers as well. I think we said last year that it it's a broken system, similar planning, and it needs a complete rethink. It's a you know, it's designed for a different world and that is still where we are, really, I think. And obviously, you know, the change in the fee structure is not gonna make the improvements that is needed to the funding, and it's again one of those things that needs a big overhaul and a fix. And we're not seeing that happen, I guess. No, I mean, over over Christmas, my stepdaughter um Bethany was was home, and you know, we're starting to look ahead as you know what the rest of her academic year is gonna look like. And you know, it just seems ridiculous that she's pretty much gonna be home over the summer for four months. Um, you know, and you you've got you know, they've got to start thinking about those condensed two-year courses. You know, yes, she needs a break, yes, her course is intense, but you know, having four weeks four months off over the summer, you know, she'll need to work, you know, just just to fill time as well as make money, you know. And so, yeah, it's it's an outdated system.

SPEAKER_08:

Yeah, look, I I I go back to that line that that I've just said, you know, how do we talk about healthy PBSA sector when we can't talk about healthy higher education sector? Not that that should be the tagline for the podcast or anything like that, but it just it brings me back to the urban living news web uh webinar that I did just before it was the the last thing that I did before Christmas to sort of sign off. And it was it was effectively a webinar about you know uh ultimately uh putting a positive spin on the PBSA sector. And I've been accused of being bearish throughout the course of this year when all we were doing, all and all I've been doing is calling out that it's tougher to fill beds and the operating costs are sliding the wrong way, and those returns aren't necessarily there for anyone looking for a short-term flip, and the the long-term capital, yes, they they are still there, they're very consistent, but the rent increases weren't there, so you know we we knew that. And I probably second guessed myself on on this webinar and was talking about you know strong fundamentals long-term for PBSF, and and I stand by that to a certain extent, but with probably too many caveats to have covered on you know the the five minutes or so that I actually got on that on that webinar. Because it it it isn't as easy to film beds right now, and what is that going to look like when you know universities actually do start to struggle even further? There are more mergers, you know, those the direction of travel is is not looking particularly good there. We've got some some good trends for international students for undergrads at the moment, which is which is great, but the common issue is still going to be affordability. So I think my concern with my concern with higher education is that it's not it's not helping PBSA. It it really isn't. University halls can't fill beds, but universities are struggling to fill places, uh, a lot of them, even some of the Russell group as well. And they are able to balance the books. The sector is certainly not healthy, and I just don't think that's gonna help PBSA in any way, shape, or form in 2026. So there's certainly a prediction there coming up from this.

SPEAKER_05:

Let's come back to affordability for our next um prediction after we hear from our brand new sponsor, Howden.

SPEAKER_04:

Howden is the fifth largest employee-owned business in the UK and one of the largest insurance groups globally. With over 60 years' experience, Howden's specialist education division delivers tailored insurance, risk management, and well-being solutions for the education sector.

SPEAKER_06:

We have a trusted partner of nearly a thousand schools, colleges, universities, and student accommodation providers across the UK.

SPEAKER_03:

Howden helps owners and operators protect what matters most. And so they are the perfect sponsors for House. Thank you for coming on board for season six.

SPEAKER_05:

Now, Dan just hinted at affordability, that was our next prediction. We obviously debated at the beginning of 2025, as we did throughout the whole of 2025, whether there'd be any shifts in affordability for the shared living um sectors. We we predicted that affordability wouldn't improve in 2025. We predicted modest growth and possible discounting later, you know, which obviously was was was bang on. There was obviously modest growth in certain markets, and we did still see those big discounts later on in the season for for PBSA, you know, and generally across the wider, you know, rental sector, it there was modest growth across the board and and there were some big drops in certain cities as well. So yeah, what's what's our thoughts on that? You know, were we were we pretty much right about modest growth? Or if we take into account all of the discounts, all of the incentives, etc., was it actually um a deficit, not not a growth at all? I think we were right that affordability is not gonna be shifted or changed in the year, and I think that's still the case, and I think based on the things we've already discussed in this episode, I think we're still gonna struggle that with that this year, and it is an ongoing problem. And but we're still this is where I continually get frustrated, we're still doing the same things we've always done year after year after year, and the world is totally different. The worlds that we're we're working in is totally different, and until we really grasp that and go, right, okay, let's make change, I don't I don't think we're gonna see the needle move on this very much. And only in a negative way because people are forced to do it because they're forced to discount or they're forced to throw loads of incentives back because they can't get the occupancy they need.

SPEAKER_08:

So I I copped a lot of flack last year for saying that I just didn't think double-digit rent rises were appropriate in any way, shape, or form, unless you've had a massive capex project, or you've you know, uh you've mobilised at 100% occupancy with rental discounts, having built a really nice product in a good location. Uh but you know, it was all born born out. Like we we haven't seen those double-digit rent growths. We saw that we tracked it through Unite. That was the great thing about all the Unite reports. We could track the occupancy. We also then called the fact that you know Unite weren't going to hit occupancy or revenue targets towards the end of the year, and you're right, there were massive discounts and cashbacks on offer. Biggest I've ever seen. Uh, you know, there was£5,300 off of one room in Leeds, but that was just endemic across the board. And we're now unfortunately in that race to the bottom of cashbacks which have totally distorted the markets. And I blame every operator out there and every investor out there. It's not this isn't just, you know, this isn't just isolated to one or two operators. Pretty much every operator has got cashbacks in some way, shape, or form. And I and and it's not, you know, the third parties are beholden to the investors, and the investors quite often have uh, you know, refines or or those initial rental prices need to be high for the valuation. So I think what we're starting to see is that and what we saw last year is that students are just going to wait and wait and wait, and all the marketplaces are saying exactly that that students realise they don't have to book early, and so all the good work that we did post-COVID has just been completely undone because uh we're still focusing very much on those cashbacks, and the right answer here is to drop your rents and make them more appropriate, and then you will be able to front-load the booking cycle. Because if you just have those offers on later in the market, everybody waits in every city and it just distorts the demand until you know it's too late to do anything about it. But we see operators with you know an entire page of what cashbacks have we got, just literally search for a brand, uh an operating brand, and cashbacks, and you'll find effectively a list of all of the cashbacks that are available, and that's not going to help anyone. And there are some big operators out there doing that straight off the bat, launching with massive cashbacks. And you know, I I think anything over£250 as a cashback, because it you know you can use a cashback in a competitive market, but anything over£250 shows that you've got your pricing wrong. So if you are offering more than£250 cash back, you have your pricing wrong. It is absolutely that simple, and and it's it's just not doing anyone any favours. No operator likes doing it. So, you know, I'm I'm not complaining about operators. I've done cashbacks before. I've got clients who have got cashbacks on, um, and you know, for good reason, justifiable reason, because of refines or whatever it might be, but it is just a measure of the fact that the market has changed, the price the the asset is potentially being stranded, and the pricing is definitely wrong. So you know, I'd I'd love to say this is the year of of you know killing the cash back or cancelling the cash back, but I can categorically tell you it is going to be an absolute bun fight at the end of the year because everybody has not done enough on their pricing to start low and then potentially dynamically price and move that higher or move through the tiers. But we're all just going to be stuck in this bun fight of you know massive cashbacks in some locations where you wouldn't necessarily expect them as well. I don't think anywhere is going to be immune to a cashback bun fight uh in July and August. It just it's gonna be a case of who goes sooner rather than later with the big sort of thousand pound cashbacks. I think that's one of the key things to watch.

SPEAKER_05:

I think the only indication that I guess anything was learnt last year is um at from from our point of view at the property marketing strategists, we have been engaged with doing marketing audits and marketing strategies at the end of 2025, where in previous years we've been called upon to do that in kind of June, July, which is obviously far too late to make an impact. Um so it felt like some operators were acting quickly to get their ducks in a row from a marketing perspective. But obviously, you know, you you have to spend more and market harder if your prices is aren't aligned with the local market and the local demand. So it's it's you know, it's all one cycle. We're product marketeers, you know, and we we certainly cover that in it. But oh yeah, I would say it was slightly refreshing to be having those conversations much, much earlier. But yeah, watch this space for our 2026 predictions next week. The last prediction that we had was about international students. We were concerned that Chinese demand would be stressed and there would be Indian affordability constraints. So our advice this time last year was to focus on rebookers and don't rely on big late cycle international surges. Now, hey, we were totally right about that. Everyone did wait, and those international you know, surges certainly didn't didn't come. The data did show weakening Chinese volumes, um, the study visas um were were down, and home office data indicates a decline for both Indian and Chinese student visas um as well. So, yeah, how how accurate were we?

SPEAKER_08:

Not bad. It it's a lot of this is down to postgrads. So the Chinese numbers dipped because of postgrads, undergrads actually look alright, but the major issue that we have leaks into affordability here because even the Chinese are on a sliding scale of affordability, and where we see that we're only filling within PBSA, we're only filling the uh premium end of the development funnel and the development pipeline. Then you have too much premium stock, then they realise they need to be competitive, and then that starts to slide their prices down, which means the middle gets squeezed, and then their prices have to slide into the more affordable sector, and then their prices have to slide, and everyone then you know pushes students down and down and down. More students potentially then end up in HMO, uh, or they search for flexibility and affordability in BTR and co-libbing. And that's one of the things that we you know we we know is is happening. Obviously, international students in particular are looking elsewhere. This is not just a case of PBSA is the only choice, far from it now. And I think you know, we need to make sure that uh you know the PBSA sector in particular just needs to make sure that they are not overly reliant on one specific demographic. I think if you have more than 50% of students from one demographic in your property, then you are in for a bit of a rude awakening at some point, and that will be Chinese students, effectively. Like that will be the international cohort that is normally the highest in certain uh certain places. It then really concerns me as to how those international students have been acquired, and it's normally when it comes to China through marketplaces. There's some great marketplaces out there that will fill your beds, but I'm hearing from the vast majority of operators that I speak to that there is a bit of a campaign from certain marketplaces to really drive commission and to try and drive exclusivity. And we are entering a world where you know we're going to end up with booking.com here. And if you ask any hotel 25 years ago, you know, can you see yourself giving away 20% of your revenue to a website, uh effectively and a service that fills your beds but does it on a nightly basis? If you now say that that's what's going to happen, and I know that there's a lot of people paying 20 to 25% in certain cases, if you think that's gonna be the norm for PBSA or BTR or co-living, we have a major problem. So I think I think everyone needs to just take a bit of a breath when it comes to marketplaces as well. So you don't want to be overly reliant on one nationality, you don't want to be overly reliant on one marketplace, in my humble opinion. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of very good operators out there that have an exclusivity policy with one marketplace in particular, and that may work for them in terms of the team sizes or just the you know where they're positioned. But my worry is that you know just focusing on that one marketplace and that one demographic, I think that leaves you at a great risk of revenue leakage, but also occupancy leakage if for whatever reason that property or that brand falls out of favour. So overall, and that's that that's actually slightly a prediction as well. But overall, I think we were pretty much bang on with with what we were expecting. Um, you know, that the demand is very volatile right now. Postgrads are a bit of a disaster zone, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. Um, and that's going to really heavily affect PBSA as a whole. So that gap with postgrads is very difficult to fill with the kind of money that postgrads have uh when you're trying to attract domestic students to fill that gap. Uh, it just it just can't happen. And that's where this revenue leakage and the uh affordability sliding scale is really coming into play, and that is only going to be stronger in 2026, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_05:

I think this comes down to my eloquent. We were right, but again, we're not quick enough to look at the sector as a whole and think about what we need to do to make changes to how we market, how we promote, what we build, how we build. And it's changed, it's changing, and we need to change wholesale what we do as business, and yeah, we'll wait till next week to see whether we predict whether that's going to happen. And also, um, in a few weeks' time, we're gonna be having a China special with Tong and Viva City as well. So it's let's lots of deep dives into the market um with the absolute industry experts there. So we cannot wait for that one. So to summarise, we we were right about uncertainty, bottlenecks, and affordability. And if 2025 taught us anything, it's that that change is coming and change is happening, but rarely on the timeline anybody hopes for. And if you're operating in shared living, flexibility and value are still watchable. Next week we'll go through some predictions for 2026 and to let us know if you've got any thoughts, um hopes, ideas for the next 12 months that you'd like us to cover.

SPEAKER_04:

Thank you to my student for us for being on headline for the season once again. Your support is hugely appreciated, and of course, thank you to you to make me a watchful coming forward again for season six. And on new with spots and helped it, thank you so much for coming up for me to pop with you and later season. We hope you enjoyed this video today's episode because we're waiting for it. I know that might be scratching up the setting of the video, and it's not sure it will be quite fast. But if you have any topics or ideas about the button fix on the PSA P T O University of Lacense Fixes, get in touch at hello at housepodcast.com and we'll see you again next week.