\n<\/p>\n
A drop in the number of international students coming to the UK has hit the student housing provider Unite Group, which lowered its profit outlook for the third time in four months as weaker demand prompted it to cut rents in some cities.<\/p>\n
Shares in the FTSE 250-listed company \u2013 which says it is the UK\u2019s biggest student housing provider \u2013 fell almost 10% to the lowest level since early 2015. It said it would not build any more student housing, after the completion of its first build-to-rent project in Stratford with 719 beds, expected in June.<\/p>\n
Only 68% of Unite\u2019s beds are reserved for the next academic year from September, prompting it to focus on owning and managing student accommodation in cities with \u201chigh tariff universities\u201d \u2013 those requiring the best A-level grades from students and the most Ucas points for entry.<\/p>\n
Unite is stepping up disposals and cost-cutting measures, as it announced the \u00a3186m sale of St Pancras Way, a 571-bed property in London, to the Unite UK Student Accommodation Fund, its joint venture with Singapore\u2019s sovereign wealth fund GIC.<\/p>\n
Karan Khanna, the Unite chief operating officer, said the \u201cmost challenging\u201d cities were Nottingham, Leicester and Sheffield, where the group had reduced rents and tenancy lengths from 51 weeks to 44 weeks. In other places, such as Bristol and at Burnet Court in Edinburgh, where student rooms start from \u00a3250 a week, it has also cut rents and the duration of tenancies.<\/p>\n
Expressing confidence in the enduring appeal of UK higher education globally, Joe Lister, the Unite chief executive, added: \u201cWe should be focusing on those high tariff universities; we have seen changes in the marketplace coming from the move to more students staying at home and the fall in international postgraduates, and repositioning the portfolio will take some time.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/span>Unite is to sell its St Pancras Way student accommodation in London to a joint venture with Singapore\u2019s sovereign wealth fund GIC.<\/span> Photograph: PR image<\/p>\n With a shortage of affordable digs across the UK, student accommodation was, until recently, a bright spot in Britain\u2019s commercial property sector, attracting private equity investors such as Blackstone, but has been hit by a drop in overseas student applications.<\/p>\n British universities reported a fall in the number of international students starting postgraduate courses in September for the second year in a row, down 6%, according to a survey. The government announced a new levy on international students last year, and granted fewer sponsored study visas.<\/p>\n Unite, which has just acquired Empiric Student Property with 7,700 beds across 68 buildings in 22 cities, warned that it would deliver occupancy and rental growth towards the lower end of its guidance ranges, of 93%-96% and 2%-3% respectively in the 2026-27 academic year. This will translate into like-for-like income growth of zero to 2%, down from zero to 4%.<\/p>\n The company is aiming for between \u00a3300m and \u00a3400m of property sales annually, starting this year.<\/p>\n As a developer, it recently ditched a \u00a3147m project for 605 beds in Paddington and deferred its 500-bed Freestone Island scheme in Bristol. It is exploring \u201call options\u201d for the land it owns \u2013 sites for an additional 2,400 beds \u2013 including selling them and joint ventures.<\/p>\n Peel Hunt analyst Matthew Saperia said: \u201cThe job of returning Unite to growth remains considerable, and execution risk remains high.\u201d<\/p>\n The Unite chief financial officer, Michael Burt, said that, although across the market the new supply of purpose-built student housing increased last year, it remained at about half of pre-pandemic levels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A drop in the number of international students coming to the UK has hit the student housing provider Unite Group, which lowered its profit outlook for the third time in four months as weaker demand prompted it to cut rents in some cities. Shares in the FTSE 250-listed company \u2013 which says it is the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[752,23289,1600,70,1264,531,4211,393,678,1070],"class_list":{"0":"post-45121","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-biggest","9":"tag-enrolment","10":"tag-fall","11":"tag-hit","12":"tag-housing","13":"tag-international","14":"tag-provider","15":"tag-student","16":"tag-students","17":"tag-uks"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/45122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}