New York is the world’s most expensive city for international student accommodation, according to data published by bookings platform Student.com, while rents are climbing fast in the UK and some Australian cities.
Student.com compiled data from bookings across its entire user base into its 2016 overseas student accommodation indicator, distributed in China.
It found that students booking through Student.com paid $526 a week on average to live in the Big Apple in 2016 – $60 more than in the second most expensive city, San Francisco.
“We were surprised that London did not appear in the top five most expensive cities”
“New York is one of the most expensive cities in the US, and it’s a big student destination with a large number of universities in a relatively small area,” Angela Zaeh, Student.com’s VP growth and international, told The PIE News. “If students want to be in walking distance of their university (and they often do), it will be expensive.”
Three of the four most expensive locations for student accommodation were in California: after San Francisco came Berkeley ($459/week) and La Jolia in San Diego ($434/week). Boston followed in fifth place, at $385 a week.
London, notoriously expensive for international students, came in sixth, with accommodation costing an average of $330 a week – nearly $200 less than in New York.
“We were surprised that London did not appear in the top five most expensive cities globally for students. London is internationally recognised as a very expensive place,” commented Zaeh.
Edinburgh came in seventh, making it the second most expensive city in the UK, which was also surprising, Zaeh said: “We might have expected this to be Bristol, Bath, Oxford or Cambridge.”
Cambridge and Oxford followed Edinburgh in the eighth and ninth positions however, while Sydney rounded out the top 10.
Although the five most expensive cities were in the US, it was UK locations that saw the biggest increase in student rents.
Students paid on average 5-10% more to live in UK cities than in 2015, the survey found. The average rent in London went up by $18 this year, and in Bath by $23.
“The Australian student housing market is an undersupplied market with huge demand”
Meanwhile, rents in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia’s priciest cities, skyrocketed by more than 10% over the last year, to $268 and $267 a week respectively.
And Student.com predicts that rents will continue to shoot up by $10-$20 a week in 2017 in these two destinations, echoing warnings by IEAA last year over affordability as an influx of international students exacerbates accommodation shortages across the country.
“[The Australian student housing market] is an undersupplied market with huge demand. Student accommodation as an asset class is going to triple in the next three years,” Zaeh predicted.
Coastal hotspots incurred the highest costs in Australia: Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth made up the rest of the country’s five most expensive cities. However, they were notably more affordable than Sydney and Melbourne, ranging from an average of $138 to $191 a week.
Student.com doesn’t publish its user figures, but took $110m in bookings from students in over 100 countries last year. The company is expanding globally, having secured investment from Silicon Valley investors earlier this year.
Student.com’s top ten most expensive cities for international student accommodation
