BREAKING PROPERTY NEWS – 02/08/2022
Daily bite-sized proptech and property news in partnership with Proptech-X.
Scape partners with Spike Global to enhance student accommodation experience
Creating a home away from home is what Scape is all about – the developer and operator providing accommodation for students through its partnerships with world class institutions, including UCL, Kings College London and RCSI Dublin. Its latest partnership, with industry leading resident engagement and property management software provider Spike Global, will see the roll-out of a bespoke, white-labelled version of its resident engagement portal, Spike Student, across Scape’s portfolio in the UK and Ireland.
Helping students get more from their cities and their studies, residents will be able to manage their daily lives from a single smartphone app, whether that’s being notified when they have a package ready to collect, planning a night out with friends, booking a gym session, or checking availability and hiring out the cinema room to unwind after a busy week studying.
Whilst moving to a new area can be intimidating for some, the Scape app will help students by offering tips for exploring and getting to know their new surroundings. Furthermore, the app will bring students closer to the local community by sharing news, events and partner offers to help them access the best deals possible.
With Spike Student able to be integrated with electronic access control systems, students will no longer have the hassle of remembering – and subsequently forgetting – their key cards. This, alongside the ability for residents and staff to communicate digitally through the portal, allows property management to be practically paper-free, contributing to Scape’s ongoing efforts to protect the environment in its everyday business operations.
Jeremy Heath-Smith, CEO of Spike Global, comments: “We are delighted to be working with Scape and know student accommodation is about much more than just a place to stay whilst earning a degree. There are so many important aspects of a student’s life that make the experience what it is, and Spike Student helps reduce the stress and difficulties that can come with moving away for the very first time. The portal provides a one-stop shop that can help the students make the most of their time in accommodation, and fully utilise all that Scape accommodation has to offer them.”
Neil Smith, Managing Director of Scape comments: “We expect the portal to be one of the most used apps on the phones of the students of 2022/23, thanks to Spike’s streamlining of the student accommodation experience. It is important to us that our residents experience all the benefits of a strong student community, and our residents’ app will help us to foster and enhance this at such an important time in their lives.”
Zoopla: UK House Price Index Report June 2022
- Market activity resilient in the face of economic headwinds
- One-off pandemic impacts have continued to support the desire to move, and sales volumes in H1 which are 10% down on last year.
- Total sales set to exceed our original projections – we expect 1.3m sales completions in 2022, 100,000 higher than forecast.
- More activity means the rate of price growth will not slow as fast as we expected, even if there were sharp drop in demand.
- We expect house prices to end the year 5% higher over 2022.
- The market is not immune from higher borrowing costs. Levels of activity will slow faster over Q3 and into Q4. The scale of the slowdown will depend upon how high mortgage rates rise.
Market activity resilient and set to out-perform in 2022
House price growth and sales volumes are proving more resilient than many might have expected given the increases in the cost of living and initial increase in mortgage rates. The housing market is not immune to these growing economic headwinds but there are good reasons why market activity has been holding up. We expect demand for homes to weaken later in the year, but we are revising up our forecasts for house price growth and sales volumes for 2022.
House price growth starting to slow off a high base
Average house prices are up 8.3% over the last 12 months, lower than the recent high of 9.6% in March 2022. Around the country, prices are rising fastest in Wales (+11.1%) and remain in double digits in the South West and East Midlands. London continues to lag well behind with average prices up 4% over the last year. All markets are registering slower growth off a high base. The rate of price increases remains well ahead of the 5-year average – see chart below. We expect the rate of growth to slow over the second half of the year, but not as fast as we had projected at the end of last year due to the continued resilience in sales and buyer interest.
Pandemic impacts continue to stimulate home moves
Our latest data shows demand for homes remains 25% above the average over the last 5 years. Buyer interest has slowed over recent months from high levels registered in the Spring, but levels of demand remain on a par with this time last year. The headwinds facing consumers will be starting to squeeze some people out of the market, but this is being offset by those with a continued desire to move. There are several factors at play, largely pandemic related.
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