Co-living - the graduation from Student Housing

JLL unveils new report

March 20, 2018

JLL has published a new report which suveys the changing dynamics of student accommodation.  Commenting on "Co-living" the graduation from Student Housing, Philip Hillman, international director, Student Housing EMEA, JLL, said: "The student accommodation sector has been transformed by a new generation of students who have grown accustomed to higher levels of serviced accommodation than has previously been available.  After graduation, they are pursuing similar high quality accommodation that provides them with flexibility and consistency, regardless of location."

Simon Scott, director, Residential Capital Markets Investment, JLL, added: "Co-living is a natural next step for student housing. It provides a flexible, purpose built product that is available to the wider residential market.  From a planning policy perspective, the proposed 2018 London Plan identifies large-scale purpose built shared living space (PBSL) as the anticipated use for any student housing scheme that does not have a university agreement in place.  Indeed, 70% of the 49,000 extra student housing beds in London over the last 10 years were direct let beds with no university agreement, highlighting the potential scale for this market."

Simon continued: "PBSL is defined as shared living developments that comprise of at least 50 units.  These units should be appropriately sized to be comfortable and functional to a tenants needs. Ultimately, this type of accommodation is a short-term solution, but importantly the accommodation is available to people within the private rental market as well as students."

James Kingdom, associate director, Alternatives Research, concluded: "Co-living has the potential to be a sustainable housing option when there is set to be a further 13 million people living in European cities by 2025.  Where land values are higher or pressures on land use are greatest, then there is an obvious need to increase the number of people that can live in these locations. Modern student housing has a greater emphasis on communal areas, whether that is for dining space, living or leisure use. This is also the standard template for co-living developments. These facilities provide the trade-off for a smaller living space and are features that are unlikely to be present in a house share or self-contained flat.  Student housing and co-living clearly have an important role to play."