At the Student Accommodation Conference 2022, hosted by Property Week, Yardi’s Georgie Drewery sat down with Craig Bryant, strategy and business development director for Fresh to discuss the cost-of-living impact on student accommodation.
As students are accustomed to paying set monthly fees for utilities, they aren’t usually impacted by the changing costs of individual suppliers such as gas and electric. The discussion explored how operators are managing the current cost of living climate with rapidly changing costs in line with set fees they charge students and how is this impacting the operator model for student accommodation.
Drewery opened the discussion by stating the National Union of Students reported 1 in 3 students living in PRS as opposed to PBSA are left with less than £50 per month after paying rent and bills. “In your perspective, how is Fresh managing that environment?”
Bryant said, “We’re under a duty as operators and investors to do what we can in this market space to protect the students – they are our residents, we are providing homes for them, and the impact this crisis is having on them is significant.
“With inflation rising above the 2.5/3%, you’ve also got inflation with the cost of staff – “As a people business and a people industry, you need to have the right partners to work with that are able to provide better value and hedge costs, products etc., as those benefits will be passed down to clients.”
Student Wellbeing
Student wellbeing has been a hot topic in the industry and Drewery expressed how it is still so important in the student environment. Fresh has its own programme called Be – Bryant explained how it’s a fully inclusive package that takes you through the whole student journey from arrival to exit – “It’s award-winning and concentrates on keeping student’s wellbeing at the forefront of what Fresh do.
“We are passionate about the residents we provide homes for. Our wellbeing programme allows you to form relationships with your residents – you can engage with them on a more personal, one-to-one basis,” Bryant said.
“We should remember that a cold room impacts on mental wellbeing. So, it is all very well to incentivise someone to turn the heating off and live with a jumper on, but actually that will have an impact on them.”
Students are interested in sustainability and we need to give them the right information in the best way that allows them to understand the impact they can have. Bryant expressed how the students can become an ambassador for that message and send it out to their friends, through social media, back home and more.
“We talk about putting in the right technology to enable you to have the data that shows you how your buildings are being used, where energy is used most, and then feeding that back to individual students, but you need to deliver the message properly. If you can change the behaviour of one person on that basis, exponentially, you will ultimately have the biggest impact.”
You Need to Engage with Your Students
Engaging with students and building a community is crucial for mental wellbeing but also nurturing relationships. Drewery asked how Fresh are using their app to give back to the community, plan events and build relationships.
“Engagement is key to everything and having an app, which is provided to us through Yardi, enables us to have a huge amount of interaction with residents outside of in person chats as they walk by.
Residents take that app and they use it themselves to plan initiatives, events or entertainment. We are able to push notifications to them and bring them together. We can highlight community spirit and community use that makes a difference to what they do on a day-to-day basis,” Bryant added.
Rising Costs
With the rising cost of utilities under the all-inclusive model, Drewery asked if Bryant sees a cap being initiated. Bryant explained how it probably wouldn’t be a direct charging model where you pay exactly what you use, but there may be a fair usage policy implemented. He advised that people in PBSA should consider putting technology in place to capture the data. “If you don’t have the technology and you don’t have the data, you lose the optionality. And it may be that the model never changes from where it is now.
The key part to think about is engaging with the students – you don’t want to surprise someone at the end of a year and say your fair usage was a hundred so you need to pay up. That’s going to be a nasty surprise to any student who’s already been tightly budgeting their finances throughout the year.”
Bryant stated that students are already passionate but they often don’t know how or what they can do to make a difference. Something obvious to us such as closing a window or turning the heating down isn’t something they think will make an impact. “We need to remember that for many of them, this is the first time they’ve lived away from home. Something simple to us isn’t simple to them. If you provide them with the information to help educate them, they can be very willing to adopt those policies and behaviours to make a difference and improve things for everyone involved.”
To end the session, Drewery asked Bryant what would be your one takeaway that you have learned moving forward and how do we overcome this crisis?
“I think there’s two takeaways from this – you do need to have the data to have the biggest impact. So, to get the data you need, you need the appropriate technology. So, let’s say that is a given and going forward everyone’s going to have it available to them. The second takeaway is resident engagement. Build those resident relationships so that your messaging can be tailored specifically to people on an almost individual basis, because that’s the best way you’re going to get through to them.
I think we’re pushing at an open door, but you still have to deliver the message in the most appropriate and relevant way. If we can do that, then we will change those behaviours and that will have the biggest impact on this crisis.”
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