60% of city’s rental homes on website is for students
MORE than 60% of properties available to rent in Exeter on one major property website are advertised as student accommodation.
There were 408 properties advertised to let in Exeter on Rightmove, at time of publication. When the “don’t show student accommodation” filter is applied, this number is slashed down to 147 – a 64% decrease. It decreases further to 131 when the “don’t show house shares” filter is also applied.
Of those remaining properties, 74 are to be let at £1,295 per month or higher. This is above the national average rent, which was £1,276 per month in England as of February 2024, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The proportion of student accommodation is largely the same on OnTheMarket, where it makes up 59% of Exeter rental listings. On Zoopla, 30% of those advertised are set aside for students.
It comes after Exeter City Council agreed to increase restrictions in a bid to crack down on homes being turned into student accommodation. Since 2010 Exeter has had a zone, known as an Article 4 Direction, where property owners must apply for planning permission to turn properties into a house in multiple occupation (HMO) which covers some parts of St David’s, Pennsylvania, Newtown and Heavitree. The council says it launched a review of the Article 4 direction in early 2022 after receiving a petition from local residents about the increasing number of HMOs outside the restricted zone. The review, carried out by Figura, found that, as of mid March 2022, there were 1,385 licensed HMOs in Exeter, with 1,049 in the Article 4 area and 246 in excluded areas contained within the Article 4 area. Figura estimated there were around 9,100 “habitable student bedspaces within HMOs.”
It was also estimated that there were around 6,900 households with student council tax exemptions in March 2022, 40 per cent of which were in private rental or HMO accommodation.
After the review, Figura recommended that the council redefine the Article 4 direction boundaries. The authority then launched a public consultation in the summer of 2023 and, in February this year, agreed to increase the area. From December the restricted zone will be increased, most significantly to the northern part of the city to include most of Pennsylvania, as well as an extra section of Cowley Bridge Road.