Housemates - student accommodation made easy
by Startacus Admin
The lowdown on Housemates the Manchester-based startup that's on a mission to make securing student accommodation easier than ever before...
One of the challenges that students face when moving away from home to study is accommodation. For many, finding somewhere to stay alone is too expensive, so looking for housemates to share the costs with is the best solution. But whether looking for a place alone or with others, there are shared concerns, such as ensuring that the place is safe, knowing that no one will start altering terms or prices once you’re in, and having the peace of mind of some flexibility when it comes to booking before knowing for sure you have a place at the university.
Manchester-based prop-tech startup Housemates was designed with all of this in mind, after the pandemic revealed a need in the sector for both students and operators to have flexibility and adaptability.
For students, the platform is easy to use, simply inputting your location and browsing through the locations and the options within those locations, and booking.
If a guarantor is needed, Housemates can link you to a service to get one. The startup offers a guarantee to students still waiting to hear back either from their university about their admission or from their visa application that, should either of these not be successful, money put on the property will be refunded in full. Likewise, should COVID-19 restrictions prevent you from entering the country, your money will be refunded in full.
For operators, Housemates say that the platform will help “eliminate legacy PBSA operator issues such as poor conversion rates, expensive leads, difficult occupancy management, high workloads, and dealing with outdated information”. They can have a branded page displaying all of their properties, with quick and easy booking for whatever holding deposit they want to set, and if any bookings are taken outside of the platform, it’s just as easy to add these in manually. And, in line with the aforementioned guaranteed refunds, the operator doesn’t pay any fee to Housemates until the student is situated.
Housemates started raising their seed funding round in December, having launched in the UK and Ireland, with a goal to expand internationally this year. Things are already complicated enough when it comes to student accommodation (particularly at the moment), so cutting out the hassle and the middleman, while keeping things safe for students, and streamlining everything for operators, is a welcome step.
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Published on: 22nd January 2021
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