SUSU Housing Survey Results Revealed

Over the past few months, SUSU carried out a housing survey to find out where it’s all going wrong, where students are being fleeced and to gather some advice for those of you looking for homes in the housing jungle. Students have spoken about their experiences and even scored their landlords and letting agents based on the treatment they’ve received this year.

A bit of background info for you; 632 people completed the survey with 20% in 1st year, 39% in 2nd year, 32% in 3rd year and the remainder from 4th and 5th year students – so a pretty good range of respondents.

First up, 85% of students had a contract signed by February, with some students even getting a deal sorted by October with 55% of students having to pay admin fees (with the highest being an extortionate £150).

40% of students said they planned on getting a contract secured by February but 36.4% of respondents wanted to take their time over making decisions.

With the private housing market considered a minefield, SUSU have done the leg work to see how students rated letting agencies . For starters, nearly 54% used an agency over a private landlord.

Anonymous results from the survey suggested that Elliots received the lowest average score at just a measly 1.5 (out of 10) with South Lettings only rated at 2. Beals Lettings, Morris Dibben and Personal Homefinders averaged a 3 out of 10 whilst Cryers, Repulink and Homelife Lettings were at scored 3.5. Marques and Pearsons were averaged at a 4.

When it came to contract signing, 40.2% of students said they felt pressured into it, with students commonly being told to “beat the rush” and “that all the good houses would be gone after Christmas”. When asked by multiple choice, here’s where students said the pressure came from:

So what else did respondents have to say?

“The large lettings agencies start letting early deliberately to put pressure on students, particularly 1st years.”

“Know your rights. Don’t be a coward and speak up if your landlord is messing you around.”

“Many letting agencies used pressurising tactics, such as calling us up and saying unless we decided to sign for a house that day it would be taken off­ the market.”

“MOULD! I didn’t realise my student house would have so much. They definitely hid that well when I signed my contract!”

“In October just after uni had started they were already pressurizing us to resign for next year. Wouldn’t even hold our house for a week while we got money together, 100 pounds is a lot of money for admin which we won’t get back. Still showed people around our house when we had resigned!”

But it’s not all doom and gloom though, here’s some positive comments:

“The housing campaign helped us to make our decision to leave our current house (first year rushed mistake) and we waited for the SASSH list and got this loooovely house for next year :)”

“Many more student rooms than students, no rush necessary”

“No issues with my landlord at all. No fees charged, same house two years and no increase in rent. All problems such as broken boiler, mould, flooring were fixed promptly.”

It must be stressed that these results are not designed to misinform students, disgrace landlords or letting agencies but are a collection of anonymous and honest student opinions which other students can use in the future to make informed decisions whilst property hunting.

Hats off to Chloe Green (VP Welfare and Communities) and SUSU for conducting this survey. Chloe said:

A ton of students have complained to me about housing this year so I really wanted to understand the full scope of the problem. The results being published is fantastic because it means we can make statements about rogue practises free from speculation or gossip – this is all entirely student opinion and it’s much more objective than just “well my mate said (insert agency) were crap”.

The results tell us things I think we’ve all known for a while: the November housing rush is absurd, pressure tactics are often employed to exploit students, and some letting agencies simply aren’t worth your time or money. I urge students to take note and use SUSU’s resources (or excellent material from Shelter) before signing contracts next year and beyond.

SUSU will now begin to build up their own lettings agency and work with landlords to offer high quality student digs. Southampton will follow the steps of other unions like Portsmouth, Sussex and Aberystwyth in having a Union-managed letting agency on campus. Chloe also said:

As for the SUSU Letting Agency, this is incredibly exciting. We will be starting very small; letting agencies take a few years to become established and trusted by home-owners but our eventual plan is to influence the housing market and raise the standards. We can only do this if we’re in the business itself, with the ability to work closely with landlords, so that’s what we’re going to do

The full survey can be viewed here.