The Potential Risks of Student Lettings And How To Avoid Them

Managing student lettings requires attention to detail, high-quality services and a recognition of the growing demands of future generations of students looking to rent. The future of student accommodation is moving in such a way that it is no longer enough to just provide operational excellence, it is vital that the tenancy journey is seamless from start to finish.

The unique journey that students embark upon when they rent means the process requires management across every component of the tenancy duration. Whilst the common conception is renting to students requires the landlord to be hands-on each step of the way, we believe in putting your management on auto pilot – that’s us!

The main risk with student lettings is simply the amount of time you have in relation to the high volume of tenants and the requests that come with them. You can only be in one place at one time, but with our digitalised platform you can respond and action numerous viewing, offer and maintenance requests at the same time and most importantly, in the same place. Using Bunk’s various automated systems to manage your student renters you can easily avoid these risks and maximise the relationships with your tenants as they continue to rent for the period of their studies.

Below, we will focus on the main mistakes Bunk helps you to avoid when renting to students.

Student rent arrears

One of the most notorious mistakes is falling behind on rental payments from students. It is hard to trust the financial stability of a student when most students have no prior renting history nor substantial financial history. Most students rely on grants or loans which they receive in lump sums.

This risk is mitigated by guarantors. The mistake lies in the improper financial checks of a student guarantor. Bunk makes guarantor referencing easy by taking it off your hands and doing it for you. We use an in-depth and efficient method of checking your students guarantor to ensure the greatest amount of security.

What makes Bunk different is that we don’t hide these processes from you, unlike high street lettings agents. With Bunk you not only can access any guarantors information wherever you are on your dashboard but you don’t even have to do the chasing up if something does go wrong.

With instant notifications and text alerts, we will chase any rent arrears for you and spend the time getting to the root of the problem. This means you can use that valuable time you would have spent chasing tenants on more worthwhile tasks.

students at cafe discussing student lettings

Not recognizing student expectations

Students can have high expectations. Rightmove has reported that 82.1% say fast internet is important when selecting a property and 71.9% prefer bills to be included. Most students will require direction throughout their rental journey as they will have little renting experience. Not recognising the demand for continuous communication is a mistake that student landlords fall into, meaning there are barriers stopping them from entering into good relationships with their tenants and ultimately hindering a longer- tenancy agreement.

At Bunk we facilitate a direct line of communication between you and the tenant, meaning you will never miss a message. To make life easier for you and your tenants our system works to the highest quality digitally but with humans behind it. Meaning, we don’t leave people in digital siberia. We offer a human touch to our renters and ensure student wellbeing is upheld in how we handle their problems, questions, and concerns. 

“All the staff are very professional, helpful, and personable. Their online platform is extremely user friendly, transparent and innovative and they are always available to answer any questions or queries we may have.” – John, Property Manager

Bunk was created out of student renter frustration. Co-founders Harry and Tom who turned their annoyance at the traditional letting agents into the UK’s leading proptech management platform. This attests to Bunk whole-heartedly understanding the student renters perspective and from that, we’ve made a landlord platform that directly answers the needs of tenants.

Leaving maintenance requests too late

Believe it or not, most property maintenance issues can be resolved fairly easily and not cost you too much! The problem is when you are a student landlord you have so many properties to look after that often a pile of maintenance requests all stored in different places gets lost, put to one side, or accidentally ignored. 

Bunk allows students to self report their problems meaning the process of maintenance requests and actions are automated. Through Bunk, tenants can report issues from their phones on-the-go in a lecture or at home on their laptops. We know both students and landlords are busy so we make the fiddly process of maintenance requests as time-efficient as possible.

On the other side, landlords can update in real-time the status of any property maintenance requests, marking them as more or less urgent allowing the status of the work to not get forgotten about. Furthermore, once the work has been completed, Bunk allows you to attach, store, and upload invoices or confirmation receipts from work that needs to be done. This means you are up-to-date and organised with what work is taking place and what money is owed.

Get student lettings-ready, Go Bunk

We centralize your student lettings and management process to boost your operational productivity and allow you to focus on the important stuff – the experience of your students in your properties. Talk with one of our letting advisors today about your student lettings and management process and see how we can build a custom solution to suit your needs.

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Heather Mitchell

Heather Mitchell

Originally from the midlands, Heather is our client success lead here at Bunk. When she is not making the lives of our landlords a whole lot easier, you can find her cooking spicy food and painting canvas art.

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