The Latest accommodationforstudents.com research shows increase of 4.3% on last year –

(London, 9/8/10) The latest research from accommodationforstudents.com (afs), the UK’s No 1 student accommodation website, shows a sharp increase in student rents in 2010. The average weekly student rent now stands at £65.30, 4.3% higher than last year (£62.61). The previous two years’ increases were just 1.6% and 1.7%. Since 2004, when the average rent was £52.44, rents have risen 25%.

Rents are highest in the South East, which hosts 8 out of the 10 most expensive student locations. London leads the way with an average rent of over £100 per week, with Guildford, Uxbridge, Cambridge, Middlesex, Egham and Brighton all weighing in with rents of over £80 per week (see full table below).

accommodationforstudents.com has published its latest table of student rents throughout the UK to coincide with the A-Level results which come out on Thursday, 19^th August, 2010. The stats are based on nearly 60,000 properties in 83 cities across the UK.

Some traditional English redbrick universities: Liverpool (£55.49), Birmingham (£57.30), Manchester (£60.12), and Sheffield (£60.14) are still below the average UK weekly student rent of £65.30.

Best value locations in terms of student rental accommodation are Middlesbrough, Stoke-on-Trent and Stockton with average weekly rents of £41.47, £42.65 and £44.71 respectively.

Simon Thompson, co-founder and director of Accommodation for Students, said:

“Students who are going through the Clearing process are unlikely to be able to find university accommodation for their first year and so it is really helpful to know precisely how much they will have to pay for private rented accommodation.”

accommodationforstudents.com has over 750,000 registered students. It is top of the UK search engines and receives over 475,000 visitors per month, with an average site visit time of over 7 minutes.

Thompson added:

“Minimum down payments for buy-to-let mortgages are now 20-25% – it really has become a cash buyers’ market! With more equity now tied up in their properties many landlords have been forced to increase rent in order to make a return on investment.”

APPENDIX

UK Student Rent Analysis, July 2010 (83 cities/59,368 properties)

About accommodationforstudents.com

accommodationforstudents.com (www.accommodationforstudents.com) is the UK’s number one No.1 student accommodation website, designed to provide students with one central comprehensive source of information on student accommodation.

accommodationforstudents.com was founded in 2000 by Simon Thompson and William Berry. It provides a powerful search engine accessing a nationwide database of student accommodation which enables students to find properties, private halls and housemates fast. Students can now also deposit their accommodation requirements using the site’s ‘Property Alerts’ service and get properties e-mailed to them on a daily basis that match their requirements. The landlord admin suite interface allows landlords to directly upload and edit their property details and pictures on to the site which allows for ease of communication with students.

accommodationforstudents.com was nominated for Best Use of Web in the 2005 and 2004 New Media Age Awards and was highly commended in the Best Industry Innovation category at the inaugural 2002 Property Business Awards. In June this year Simon Thompson was named one of the top 40 business people in Manchester, courtesy of the Crains Manchester Business Paper 40 under 40 awards. Co-founder William Berry also won the 2006 BT Essence of the Entrepreneur award for the site.