£90m student accommodation portfolio placed on the market

Beachrock has been appointed to sell a £90m portfolio of purpose built student accommodation (PBSA), comprising 1,494 student bed spaces.

The seven assets are located in four university cities with each bed worth £60k.

Four Coventry sites of Corporation Village, Burges House, Pillar Box and Market Way are up for sale as well as Clarendon Street in Nottingham, which when combined totals more than 800 beds.

The remaining schemes are Castle Street in Cambridge and The Moor in Sheffield.

James Pullan, Partner at Beachrock told TheBusinessDesk.com: “Investors are fundamentally attracted by strong occupational demand characteristics and combined with the residential asset class that’s basically part of higher education.

“We are selling here a portfolio that includes very strong institutional assets. £60k per bed is particularly attractive because it’s below development viability – it’s probably half the development viability.

“International investors think the UK is well priced at the moment and UK pension funds are asking which property sector should we be getting into? And they’re going into student accommodation.

“The West Midlands has got globally competing higher education institutions and international investors want to be backing the success of these”.