News | LOFT
There are plenty of ways to reduce carbon emissions and cut waste in BTR and PBSA, but given that a private rental is the most common type of student accommodation, we wanted to tackle the best ways to create sustainable student housing for landlords as well.
The idea of the perfect student accommodation has changed a lot in the last decade. Students of times gone by were happy enough in Halls of Residence, but today’s generation want to spend their time at university living in the modest luxury they’ve become accustomed to.
And honestly, we don’t blame them. Given the choice, we’d rather live in a development with a range of amenities and services over a standard room any day.
Remote learning has been interesting to say the least. The transition from in-person lectures to online classes has dulled the full university experience somewhat, but adapting to the situation and making the most of it has got a lot of students through to the other side.
When a family, couple or a group of friends rent your holiday let, they expect something special, something homely with all the creature comforts they’re used to. And given the surge in popularity of the UK staycation market in the last couple of years, you’re in the top position to show just how good a short UK-based break can be.
Serviced accommodation properties make great investments. Holiday-makers love a good serviced apartment, and a booming staycation market has shot through the doom-and-gloom of cancelled foreign holidays for many here in the UK.
What first springs to mind when you think about amenity space in student accommodation? Do you see pictures of pool tables, comfy sofas and the occasional beer bottle and pizza box? You’re not wrong for thinking about these things, but instead of focusing on items, let’s take a deeper look at the concept.
There’s no doubt that the damage done to the Earth has had a massive impact on everyday life. According to National Geographic, humans have added enough greenhouse gases to raise the Earth’s temperature by 1.8 degrees fahrenheit over the last two centuries, causing extreme weather events and the melting of the polar ice caps.
The quality of student accommodation has certainly come a long way in recent years. Young uni students are turning away from outdated Halls of Residence in favour of design-led Purpose Built Student Accommodation.
Halls of Residence just aren’t meeting the needs of new age students. There’s no decent, quiet place to study, the amenity spaces are limited and the decor is often badly dated. If a sofa or armchair wouldn’t look out of place in a granny flat, you definitely won’t find it in PBSA.
A brand’s image and public perception count for a lot. Just look at how Cristiano Ronaldo wiped $4 billion off Coca Cola’s stock value when he snubbed the drink in favour of water during an interview.
Purpose-built student accommodation has quickly become one of the biggest markets in the property sector. Even with apprenticeship schemes offering an alternative route to employment and the ever-growing costs associated with going to university, the UK’s younger demographic are still keen on higher education.
It’s staggering how many items of furniture the UK throws away every single year; 22 million pieces, if you were wondering. And the worst part of it? A lot of the materials that have gone straight into a landfill could easily have been recycled.
If there’s one thing we can say for sure about the rental market in the UK, it’s that the sector is always changing. A temporary suspension on Stamp Duty, tenant eviction bans, fluctuating property prices; we’ve seen it all and more just in the last year.
