Unite Group cuts student rents to boost occupancy

The country’s biggest student landlord has been cutting asking rents to fill its halls before September, a move that tells smaller landlords and property investors a good deal about where pricing power in Britain’s rental market now sits.

Unite Group, which operates some 200 student halls across the UK, said “targeted pricing initiatives” at a number of its buildings had delivered a “strong” couple of months of bookings.

The company now expects its buildings to be between 94 per cent and 96 per cent full when the new academic year begins, an upgrade on previous guidance that pointed towards the “lower end” of a 93 per cent to 96 per cent range.

The discounting has been concentrated in cities such as Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield, where a wave of new development has swung the balance between supply and demand in students’ favour. According to Unite’s trading update published on Tuesday, 86 per cent of its beds are now reserved for the 2026/27 academic year, up from 85 per cent at the same point last year.

Fuller buildings have come at a cost, however. Unite had expected to push through rent increases of 2 to 3 per cent next year. Reflecting those “targeted adjustments to pricing in select markets”, its rental growth forecast has been pared back to between 1 per cent and 2 per cent.

The two effects broadly cancel each other out, leaving revenue and profit predictions unchanged. Income is set to grow by between 0 and 2 per cent, while adjusted earnings per share is still expected to fall to between 41.5p and 43p, compared with 47.5p last year.

Joe Lister, Unite Group chief executive, said: “We have seen strong progress in reservations for the 2026/27 academic year since our last update in May. This reflects our strong direct marketing and sales performance together with targeted adjustments to pricing in selected markets.”

Investors were unimpressed. Unite shares, already down 38 per cent over the past year, fell a further 2.7 per cent, or 14p, to 506p in early trading.

For the SME landlords and HMO operators who still house the majority of Britain’s students, the signal is hard to ignore. When the largest operator in the market is discounting to fill rooms in Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield, smaller landlords in those cities are competing against a cheaper, newer product. Local supply, rather than national demand, is increasingly what sets the rent.

It is a dynamic already visible in the wider lettings market, where advertised rents outside London have slipped for the first time since 2019 as more properties come to market and tenant demand cools.

Regulation is adding to the squeeze. The Renters’ Rights Act, which came into force on 1 May, allowed students on existing tenancies to leave with two months’ notice under transitional arrangements, a change Unite says has seen some students exit their contracts early. For private landlords, the legislation is rewriting the business case for buy-to-let altogether.

Unite’s response is to concentrate its firepower where demand is most reliable. The group is targeting £300 million to £400 million of disposals this year as it repositions its portfolio towards the strongest universities, building on partnerships such as its £250 million joint venture with Newcastle University.

For smaller operators without that luxury, the lesson from the market leader is a sobering one: in 2026, even the biggest landlord in the country cannot raise rents where the cranes have been busy.

Amy Ingham

Amy is a newly qualified journalist specialising in business journalism at Business Matters with responsibility for news content for what is now the UK’s largest print and online source of current business news.