Institutional investors 'looking to student buy to let market'

23 November 2009

Written by Gavin Elley

A number of institutional investors are looking at purchasing buy to let student housing, as the processes involved in owning this type of asset are often less complicated than those related to the commercial property sector.

That is the view of Nick Harvey-Jones, partner at real estate wealth management group Ingman Jones, who said that landlords of commercial buildings regularly have to offer costly incentives to tenants - but this does not occur when it comes to other forms of buy to let.

Rent-free periods have also been common in recent months during the economic downturn, he added.

"With student housing - whether it is direct lets, whether it is nomination agreement rents or whether it is pre-let to universities - you don't have these problems," Mr Harvey-Jones explained.

His comments came after last week's announcement by the UNITE Group, which indicated that institutional investor sentiment towards student housing has grown.

Between July 1st and November 18th, like-for-like rental growth apparently increased to 9.7 per cent.

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