The firm’s new paper ‘Global Living Reimagined’ reveals that growth in PBSA as a proportion of European investment activity increased from 1.9% in 2019 to 5.3% in 2024.

A mismatch between supply and demand was highlighted as being a key driver of this.

Demand has increased for European PBSA, with the number of international students at European universities growing by 16.3% since 2019.

Development has not kept up with this increase in students and 71% of university catchments are falling below the European metro level average provision rate of 15.7%.

This combination of factors has led to strong annual rent growth of several markets in Europe.

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The UK was the second strongest growing PBSA market, behind Poland, and recorded annual rent growth of over 15% for the 2023/24 academic year.

Six European markets were able to generate annual rent growth of 10% or over during this period.

“The European student housing sector has gone mainstream, driven by tailwinds including demographic shifts, university prestige, and the quality and availability of the university-adjacent rental market,” the research provided noted in its conclusion.

“As this sector continues to expand and evolve, so do the opportunities for discriminating real estate investors able to strike the right balance across these key factors.”