Cookie-cutter approach won't appeal to global students

Investment volumes in student property are hitting new highs: Knight Frank recently announced that a record £5.1bn was invested in student property in 2015, more than doubling 2014’s figure. In one week last month, the Unite Group announced both the acquisition of a new £40m Birmingham student site and plans for a £30m student block in Portsmouth.

Developers and property investors are increasingly becoming aware of the huge industry opportunity international students offer, but there is a lot to be learned about how best to appeal to this rapidly growing market. This is particularly true of London, the most popular location for international students in Britain.

Among UK property developers and estate agents, there has typically been a preconception that international students in London only ever want to live in studio rooms in Zone 1 of the city.

This assumption posed many challenges to developers, for whom rising costs and dwindling space in the centre made stacking these types of developments less and less appealing.

However, what we’ve seen at Student.com suggests a more varied picture: during the past 12 months, only 43% of our enquiries for the London area were for Zone 1 properties, with the remaining 57% for properties outside the area.

For many of the thousands of international students we will be finding a home for in London this year, there are more factors to finding their perfect place in the city than how centrally they will be located.

Since the development of high-density student properties is already being nudged out of the centre of London, the news that location isn’t everything when it comes to attracting international students should be music to the ears of developers and residential landlords alike.

So if being at the heart of London isn’t the most important thing for international students, then what is?

Chinese students are now the UK’s largest international student body, followed by those from India and Nigeria. In our experience, many of these students are happy to live further out of London (in Zones 2-4, or even Zones 2-6) if it means better prices, reliable transport links and accessibility to their university of choice. Our students look for anything from a private residence in Mayfair to an HMO in Sutton.

We also find that student requirements vary from one source country to another. For instance, a student headed to London from China might have different accommodation needs to someone coming from Saudi Arabia.

German students in London - who tend to have a maximum accommodation budget of £250 a week - might be more open to sharing amenities with other students, as they will be used to this from student accommodation at home. Conversely, many of our single-gender room requests come from Asian countries, while Spanish students tend to be keen on sharing apartments with non-Spanish speakers in order to learn other languages.

In other words, a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to attracting international students is very hard to come by. Students travelling abroad for study are looking for an adventure, and where they live plays a huge part in their experience.

Property developers in London need to offer a variety of accommodation types in a range of locations in order to suit all tastes and needs.

Luke Nolan is founder and CEO of Student.com