Andrew: We are an agency and we work on behalf of educational institutions here in London, with study board agencies and we also get students contacting us directly. The majority of our clients are language schools here in London who are looking to outsource their accommodation to a homestay agency. We recruit the homestay families and most of our students have to come from higher education institutions.

Sometimes students are just expecting the UK to be Hugh Grants in Notting Hill

The PIE: What’s the current demand for host families and homestay?

Anthony: Our main markets are language schools. The big advantage of homestay is the price relative to the standards of other short-term accommodation. Generally people who are looking for long-term accommodation choose halls of residence.

The PIE: Is it easy to find families who want to host?

Andrew: That’s always the big challenge with this. Our biggest source of families is through recommendation. Initially, we just had to do leaflet drops, posters, and place ads in local papers such as The Metro. But, now it is through recommendation predominantly. By the end of the year we will have around 1,000 families on the books for the 2,500 students we place every year.

Anthony: One of the reasons we’ve done well is we look at the standard of the accommodation and the motivation of the host. There is no point in having a swanky penthouse apartment if the host does not want to provide a home from home. Someone who wants a lodger is not going to make a good host.  For a lot of students the first impression of the UK comes from the experience they have with the host.  Pricing depends on location, access to private bathroom, whether you are willing to provide evening meals and standard of accommodation.

The PIE: What happens when a student simply hates their host family?

Andrew: The challenge is – we are matching a student whom we’ve never met with a host who has also never met that student, Sharing a home with someone else always has its problems. Sometimes you get personality clashes and sometimes students are just expecting the UK to be Hugh Grants in Notting Hill.

Our biggest source of families is through recommendation

If it’s just a personality clash, we speak with the families to explain the situation. Sometimes we do relocate students, depends on what the issue is. We have a contract with all our clients that outline the procedures for handling complaints, but a lot of it is judgment, there is no chart. Schools accept that there will be complaints because they accept that we’ve never met students. They trust us to act on it very quickly.

The PIE: Have students become more demanding over the years?

Andrew: Yes definitely. In terms of the clients there is a shift toward more quality as opposed to quantity.  A lot of them, even the smaller ones request British Council registration. The schools are giving students more individual attention. Once the school provides us with a student profile, we will go to our system and provide them with photo profiles of the accommodation. And we’ve found that more and more schools are requesting photo profiles. From an estate agent perspective, that was a completely obvious thing to do.

The PIE: What’s the funniest moment you’ve had?