Take action now and turn vacant units into bankable revenue.

Co-authored by Benjamin McGee and Scott Craig

As we enter the final stretch before the new academic year, many PBSA operators are taking stock – and not all are liking what they see. Booking numbers are down, decision timelines are dragging, and the gap between expectations and reality is growing wider by the day. In a climate of uncertainty, waiting it out is no longer a strategy. It’s time to act.

The problem:

• Student accommodation bookings are significantly behind where they were this time last year, leaving many PBSA buildings facing structural voids that could deeply impact revenue performance over the course of the coming academic year.
• Many seem to be holding out for “a later leasing cycle”, however we’ve yet to see hard evidence of this. All the data points to a softening of demand in numerous locations across the UK and structural voids becoming evident. 
• Savvy operators are being realistic about how they are tracking versus previous years, are now preparing for the worst, and have plans B and C mapped out and ready to go in the event they need to mitigate risk.

How can Lavanda help?

• The Lavanda Short Stay platform has been designed to help PBSA buildings drive occupancy and revenue during term-time by taking short stay bookings from vetted student guests. We source high quality, verified student bookings from a growing number of OTAs including Booking.com and Student.com. 
• Term-time short stays have long been a mainstay of the industry. These bookings are typically less than a full semester, but longer in duration than summer bookings (which are typically <7 nights). A typical term-time short stay booking lasts 2-3 weeks. 
• Proactive PBSA operators are working with our Term-time Revenue Consultants to optimise how short stay strategies can be deployed throughout the academic year in order to monetise any vacant inventory as effectively as possible. 
• If your building can only be occupied by students, that’s not a problem. Lavanda will align your term-time strategy with student-only occupancy, and will help you forecast accordingly.
• If you’re already working with Lavanda over the summer, this can be as simple as opening up your calendars to take bookings into September, October, November and December. Taking action now is easy and will pay major dividends.

Rest assured, you are not alone. Operators across the country are actively exploring ways to optimise term-time revenue, and Lavanda is supporting them every step of the way. The good news? Taking action early opens the door to better outcomes and greater flexibility.

 > Get your personalised term-time revenue plan

Why are student bookings so behind? It’s a complex, mixed picture…

Return to pre‑Covid booking patterns

• The rush of early bookings seen during the pandemic is unwinding. Operators like Unite are experiencing a later leasing cycle, in line with pre‑2020 norms.
• At Unite, as of early July 2025, only 85% of beds are reserved, down from 94% at this time last year. Similarly, sector-wide, only 36% of rooms were booked by end‑March 2025, down from 46.3% a year earlier. These numbers point to an industry-wide trend.

International student demand is softening

• International student applications are down approximately 16% year‑on‑year, partly due to visa changes and policy shifts.
• A well-documented decline in new university entrants from key markets like China, India, and Nigeria have contributed to increased pressure on early bookings.

Affordability constraints & price sensitivity

• PBSA rents have surged – up 8% nationally, with London average annual rent now around £13,595, exceeding the cap of student maintenance loans 
• Many students are delaying booking to compare prices and wait for discounts, extending the decision-making process.
  

Local oversupply & market variability

• Some cities, like Nottingham and Sheffield, face oversupply. Booking levels in Nottingham fell from 96% to 87% year‑on‑year, with rents softening.
• Regional disparities are stark – with booking rates ranging from around 51% in top-performing cities to as low as 29% in weaker markets for this same snapshot period.

More deliberate student booking behaviour

• Students are engaging in longer booking journeys – particularly delaying until university offers and financial clarity are secured, or until competitive offers are live.
• This more considered approach requires operators to deploy tailored retargeting and communication strategies (e.g. WhatsApp, live chat) to convert interest into bookings.
  

Supply pipeline & new product mix

• Despite oversupply in some cities, overall PBSA supply remains tight; but construction challenges (high costs) have slowed development, keeping pace uneven across geographies.
• New competitors such as Build‑to‑Rent (BTR) products are drawing student interest where they offer flexibility and value, challenging traditional PBSA uptake in select cities.

> Book a call with a Term-time Revenue Consultant

Demand for flexible student accommodation during term-time is strong

• Temporary accommodation for late enrollees / transfers
• Commuter students seeking flexible mid-week / weekend accommodation
• Students on placements or short courses
• Conference attendees / guest lecturers
• Visiting academics / researchers
• Spring /summer intake students (e.g. postgraduates, international exchanges).
• Study abroad / Erasmus students

> Book a call with a Term-time Revenue Consultant

So what are the reasons for not having a term-time short stay strategy?

• We’re just too busy with our core business of placing students for the full academic year to think about managing term-time short-term rentals as well…

We get it, we really do. We totally understand how busy you are with your core business between now and October. But the brutal truth is that the investors behind your assets only care about one thing: NOI performance. If you don’t have a robust plan in place to mitigate the risk of weak revenue performance, then sadly on your head be it. Savvy operators are adapting fast. It’s now an established best practice to start planning and budgeting for term-time short stay strategies during the annual budgeting process, and we’re delighted to bring all our experience and insight to bear here.

• We only do short stays over the summer. We’re not set up to do them during term-time…

We deeply understand the preconceptions and sensitivities around term-time short stay strategies, and how different and nuanced this needs to be versus your summer operation. However the key to success is 100% in planning and readiness. By getting ahead of the game and laying the preparations upstream, you can then optimise the way units are allocated and tee your portfolio up for real term-time success. Critically, Lavanda allows you to switch to our Operational Support model during term-time, which is designed from inception to support term-time short stay operations and give you full flexibility and control on the ground to ensure a seamless operation.

• It all sounds like one big operational headache…

Our term-time short stay solution has been designed to work frictionlessly alongside your core business in order to create maximum value across your portfolio. You need to trust us here – we’ve got this! The only operational headache is the one you’re going to have when your investors find out that your building is tracking at just 85% occupancy, and that you were late to the party to put concrete plans in place to optimise the revenue performance of your vacant inventory…

• If we launch a term-time short stay strategy too early, then we worry that our investors will judge us to have failed on winning core occupancy…

This is probably the most common concern that we come up against, and we get it. All the evidence, however, points to this being an industry-wide phenomenon, and not a failure in execution. More than anything else, in the current market investors really prize working with operators who are transparent and collaborative in the challenges that they are up against. In fact, at our recent PBSA roundtable it was explicitly mentioned by one PBSA leader: “You need to be able to go back to your investor and say: here’s what we forecasted, here’s what changed, and here’s how we’re adjusting. If you don’t, you lose trust.” At the end of the day, everyone should be aligned around the same successful outcomes. Clear, regular communication helps you to control the narrative and proactively manage investor expectations so that your performance can be properly understood within the true context of the market.