HOW STUDENTS HAVE BEOME BRITAIN’S BEST TENANTS

Ah, youth.  Who doesn’t miss their collegiate days?  Those are the days where you really begin to grow as a person and start to discover who you truly are.  It’s the finest intersection of adolescence and adulthood, with all the intrigue and privileges of the former with the protection and comfort of being able to occasionally fall back on the former.  You’re old enough to drink and party, yet not quite old enough to be held to a workman’s standard for such actions.  You’re training to become an engineer, or learning the ins and outs of bio-chemistry, or coming to terms with the power of Shakespearean poetry or Joycean prose.

And, as it turns out, according to recent surveys, you make for some of the best tenants in Britain today.  How is that the case?  Here are four reasons why this young and unlikely set of buyers and renters have come to make up some of the nation’s best and most reliable tenants.

1. An Eye Towards the Future: Today’s college student has a constant eye trained towards the future.  While that may not seem like anything too novel—after all, aren’t you supposed to be working out your future in college?—it is, and here’s why.  Previous generations of college students have garnered a reputation for having a “live for now” sort of reputation.  However, when you grow up in the midst of economic difficulty, as many of today’s college students today have in the wake of the mid-2000s economic hiccups, you start to realize the importance of planning for the future.  The result?  For as silly and amateurish as they may see at times, this generation of college students is, in actuality, more financially-aware and fiscally-mature than previous crops.
2. Parents: At Onlet, we always stress the importance of having a fallback plan.  Whether you’re a landlord looking to collect rent or a student tenant that’s paying for your flat with a combination of a nest egg and money you earn on your part-time job, it’s always important to have a fallback plan.  That’s why students are one of the most reliable bets for landowners and letting agents alike—they have a definite need for flats and housing and, what’s more, if they have difficulty meeting rent, the parents are usually there to assistant their children or, at the worst, serve as collateral partners in a shared lease and tenancy agreement.
3. Demand: As alluded to, there is more demand among college students for affordable housing than just about any other demographic.  This puts landlords in a position of power in a classic case of supply and demand.
4. By the Numbers: Finally it’s worth noting that the numbers support this growing idea of students as reliable tenants.  Of the insurance claims filed last year, according to Total Landlord Insurance, only 9.6% of them were filed in relation to a student tenant.  What’s more, the typical property claim for students was £2,090.18—about four thousand fewer pounds than those pertaining to their adult counterparts.

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