Premium student housing costing parents between £250-£350 per week seems to be very much in demand. This is the price of a deluxe 1 person studio apartment in numerous student schemes across London. While this is by all accounts just a small part of the student housing market, it does seem to be a growing one.
These target market students now are looking for the quality kitchens and bathrooms that their parents have, and which it seems their parents are increasingly happy to pay for.
There is a limiting factor on the supply of student housing, even at these prices, and this is the inherent land value and the competing residential, non-student, use class. This means that in some parts of London, prices have risen so much that developers will make more money building properties for use as larger apartments, and so they will develop this type of housing instead of premium student housing.
As prices rise, we are now seeing quality student accommodation move out from prime central London to parts of London such as Greenwich, Stratford and Wembley where there is good transport connectivity, and also where the end product can be rented to a broader student market, but still at relatively high prices such as £185 per week.
And the market has also expanded outside of London to many of the leading Russell Group University towns where there are many more students than previously, and also many more international students that have the ability to pay these prices. There are numerous specialist developers targeting this lucrative sector and there seems to be ample funding for them to keep growing for the foreseeable future.