Spoke to a landlord today...

IveSeenTheLight

princeofpounds wrote: »

I can understand why people get that impression, but as flying pig says it doesn't actually make that much sense when you stop to consider the numbers.

It would be interesting to understand how close the perception is to reality.

I don't see the perception of today's student's being the same as those of say the 80's

BigAunty

princeofpounds wrote: »

Whilst I found your post very interesting, I found this quite curious. Today's students get no grants and pay vast fees, so how can they really be that much more affluent? Unless they work more of course, or parents are more generous to the tune of over fifteen thousand pounds a year

I have no true idea of the level of income/debt/parental contribution now versus 20 plus years ago when I did my degree. I have no idea how it is funded.

However,it seems that the shiny expensive dedicated student properties are flourishing. They are always generally much more costly than typical tenement flat shares.

Lifestyle expectations change. Gap years didn't exist then.

When I processed Uni applications for accommodation in Uni halls for new students 20 years ago, generally only mature students could get a single room, most students had to share and I believe twin rooms are pretty much beyond the pale now and are only a small proportion of what is now offered.

Only post-grads were offered rooms in Uni accommodation that were structured into apartments (own room and shared kitchen/living area) where that's probably now what undergrads desire and what new providers now provide as standard.

Even back then, new blocks were being built by the Uni that had only single rooms but even then, it was unthinkable for any students to have ensuite facilities whereas private providers now offer studio apartments with double beds, for example.

There was a shortage of family accommodation back in the mid 90s and I kid you not, some families were packed off to flats in hard to let towerblocks in deprived areas of Glasgow that were sublet from the local council, some of which that have now been subsequently demolished or others transformed into very popular mid-market rentals.

Time moves on - what used to be considered repellent social housing now has long-waiting lists for social housing tenants or is now in demand at market rent.

I knew no single students at my Uni that had an ensuite room, a studio apartment or their own 1 bed flat. Most stayed in grotty HMOs after their first year, usually in groups of 3 or more. Yet now it is possible for a new student in Glasgow to have their own self-contained place.

The style, quality and cost of the student accommodation in the city is actually far superior to any accommodation my friends moved into when they graduated and found employment!

the_flying_pig

key things to bear in mind when thinknig about purpose built student housing are: (a) living on campus can very easily save a student say £10-20 a week on bus fares or whatever; (b) living on campus very often makes it possible to get termtime only [e.g. 30 week] lets rather than full years, so around a 40% saving.

at the end of the 90s i was at the university of warwick. accommodation options haven't really changed at all since then.

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/accommodation/studentaccommodation/all/campus/residences/

the differences in the family backgrounds of students in say the £81 a week flats [cheaper in the 90s of course] & the £144 were massively obvious at the time [clothing & accents especially, also watches, haircuts etc]. i daresay that anyone with well-trained eye could visit teh student union bar for freshers' week there in a few weeks' time & fairly easily guess which of the halls [or certainly which part of the cheap to expensive spectrum] the different clusters of newfound friends hail from.

BigAunty

Article about how affluent overseas students often live in luxury properties in central London.

Undergraduates have swapped halls of residence and cramped bedsits for flats in some of central London’s most exclusive addresses, according to research by the London Central Portfolio.


International students now make up 41 per cent of tenancies taken up in prime areas of the capital, including Mayfair, Chelsea and Kensington, where rents can top £1,000 per week.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2701129/Wealthy-bankers-outbid-swanky-central-London-pads-record-numbers-rich-foreign-students.html

mrex

cassidy0111 wrote: »

I was talking to a family friend whilst at my parent's house earlier. His family owned a couple of car dealerships in and around Glasgow before selling out to a certain big car company in the late 90s (approx)

He now owns 6 student HMO flats in Glasgow. He was having a right old moan at Glasgow City Council for granting planning permission "to more and more of these flashy student accomodations" including one about 5minutes walk from some of his flats.

I had always assumed that he made a huge profit from the HMOs but apparently it is not as easy a business as it once was with fewer students seeking private rentals. He thinks the council should show loyalty to people who have helped students out for years and not the bankers behind these new places! (which do look rather nice I must say)

person making a killing from renting property to students moans about a bit of competition which could lower prices. thats what it boils down to!

cassidy0111

GwylimT wrote: »

Being a landlord is running a business and with any business when demand/the market changes you often have to as well to remain successful.

Where our rental property is there are a lot of students, we have personally stayed away from HMO as we would prefer to attract long term tenants, as this is both beneficial for us and the tenant. If however there wasn't a demand for rental family homes we couldn't sit and complain, we would have to use one of our two choices, go for HMO or sell up, you cannot okay the victim.

Indeed, I think the business may have effectively "ran itself" for a good number of years and he is now, perhaps, having to devote more time to it given the market leading to his complaints!

cassidy0111

princeofpounds wrote: »

It's called competition.

They aren't 'putting pressure', they are providing a better service.

If there is any group who do NOT need the subsidy of protectionist planning policies it would be student landlords. Is a 20 year property boom of unprecedented proportions not enough for them?!

PS His business could be profitable but still not 'worthwhile'. What matters is the return you are getting on the capital 'trapped' in the business.

Very true, I imagine he has owned these HMOs for approx 15 years so will have had great benefit from the BOOM!

cassidy0111

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

I can understand this and the model can of course be continually changing as with any business.

Sounds like the OP anecdote LL may be able to adjust his model, else react to the new competition.

BTL is a long term model, but you always need to keep an eye on the market and get ready to adjust / get out.

It's quite possible, that if they have invested since the late 90's, they will still have made a nice profit from the business.

IveSeenTheLight and Mallotum, I understand all about changing business models etc but I think at his age he may well just be hoping they keep making money. From what my dad has said, he bought the flats after selling out to Arnold Clark and they have been his pension ever since.

cassidy0111

BigAunty wrote: »

I lived in the city in the 90s when the council bought the HMO policy in because a stingy landlord essentially killed a student because of poor fire safety.

I actually had a temp job with a university accommodation office one summer and they had a file of student complaints about landlords in the west end, often about the failure to get repairs done or the witholding of deposits. The same names of landlords and addresses of properties kept appearing, often of the same ethnicity.

Very few landlords asking the Uni office to advertise their properties in the weekly newsletter had bothered to obtain HMO licences (I think it had been introduced within the last year when I worked there) - we couldn't accept their adverts on these grounds but no doubt they just put up a notice in the newsagents in the Byres Road anyway.

In about 2008, I asked the council how many landlords they had found not fit or proper to rent their properties and how many times they had instructed tenants not to pay the landlord for not being registered on the Scottish Landlord Registration Scheme, and the answer was 'zero'.

The scottish landlord registration scheme was bought in with the rent witholding penalty precisely because the HMO system was failing. They found that landlords were prepared to take the risk of not meeting the HMO requirements because there was only a small chance of being prosecuted and this would result in a small fine, at best, that would cost a lot less than the remedial work.

So the HMO system was routinely abused by rogue landlords and the higher deterrents in place under the Scottish Landlords Registration Scheme were worthless because the local council couldn't be bothered to enforce it.

I have seen lots of large HMOs for sale across the city and west end, often in extremely poor condition, grubby, nasty decor, dated furniture. I recall my friends living in grotty flats back then in flats where the landlord didn't even feel the need to install central heating as they had no problems letting them out due to demand.

I am not surprised that the schemes have made letting large properties to student less attractive to landlords. I have also seen how the local Unis have divested themselves of some of their historic halls of residence, too, so I expect they couldn't turn a profit because of high maintenance costs and the way that many 1st year students no longer want to share rooms.

I have also noticed the large rise in the number of professionally run student halls by independent providers and I imagine these shiny, safe, modern buildings are very popular with todays students who are much more affluent, fussy consumers than the students of 20 years ago.

I think it is the expectations of modern students for their living standards that have made the dingy tenement flats fall out of favour, their desire for privacy and not having to haggle over the bills with their flat mates, the aggro that comes with a joint tenancy, that have made them abandon the drafty HMOs of old.

I see no need for the council to support private landlords - they are at the mercy of the market. It's not the councils (and therefore the taxpayers) fault that 4/5 bedroom tenements are subject to such stringent rules and are less profitable and popular with their target group.

I always felt sorry for the stream of students who were regularly ripped off by landlords who had a portfolio of HMOs near the Uni and did !!!!!! all to maintain them or run them professionally.

Well I can make no comment on the condition of the properties as I only really know their approximate location. I agree that the new student accomodation blocks in Glasgow look very nice and appear to be in very good locations as well.

the_flying_pig

sorry to bump an old thread but i enjoyed seeing this just today.

'facade retention' has been a thing in architecture for a while, helps with planning & so on. sometimes it works well. other times not so much.

privately financed student accommodation is just about as bad as it gets from a quality perspective, but, even so, seriously...

another win for the UK's magnificent planning system.