What age do you think the average house sharer is in the UK? 18? 20? 25?
Recent data released from Build-Asset Management, shows the average age of renters living in shared properties in the UK has risen by 5 years since 2017 bringing the average age of co residents of shared houses to nearly 30 (28.2). Given this rise it make sense that the average time that renters remaining in shared residences has extended also, from 12 months in 2017 to just over 18 months in 2019 over a 50% rise.
As you may expect, the 18-25 age category still accounts for the largest percentage of all room share tenants, with 43% of those renting falling into this bracket. This starts to decline as the age increases:
- 36% of room shares are aged between 25-35
- 13% between 35-45
- 6% between 45-55
- Just 2% are aged 55 or over
It is clear however that there is a market in need of quality housing, professional sharer residents.
At Sussex Property Partnership and Target Five, we recognised this change in the dynamic of sharers last year when the student renters market in Brighton & Hove was left with many un-rented rooms following the start of the academic year.
We knew we needed to resolve this for our clients and also saw it as an opportunity to reassess our specification on projects, and make sure we were still offering the best quality we could to renters.
We immediately started sourcing and refurbishing investment opportunities for our landlord and investor clients to cater for this change in the demographic of sharer residents. This meant not only upgrading the remaining rooms on offer, but looking at a diversification of properties. Not only does this spread the risk and ensure the maximum rents can be achieved for our clients but also caters for the ever growing need of the local sharing residents market in Brighton & Hove.
It also, however, became clear very quickly through our research and development of the new properties on offer, that there were other emerging areas in the professional sharing residents market that needed a solution and therefore we extended our search area for sourcing opportunities to convert and develop to Worthing and Littlehampton.
We now have the first of these specially designed rooms available for sharers looking in Brighton, Hove, Worthing & Littlehampton. Stylish, beautifully furnished, functional, well located properties, with excellent facilities, bills included and additional extras on offer like cleaning and faster WIFI.
Unlike our competitors, our business model is based on us being incentivised by our clients success and as such this makes us focused and determined to not just sit back and let you deal with the problem of a un rented house or room. So when the very real problem of a reduced return hit our clients last year, it hit us to. This made us focused and driven to solve the issue and are constantly looking to diversify and evolve through assessing markets and demand areas.
If you have recently been left with empty rooms or houses and are just looking to diversify your portfolio with an upgrade to your existing properties or looking to invest to add to your offering as a landlord, we can help you contact me and I can discuss you individual requirements. We have great opportunities available to secure now.