Acting on behalf of construction group Mace, the Student Property team of global property consultancy Knight Frank has launched West Way Square in Oxford to market, a rare PBSA scheme. Knight Frank is seeking offers in excess of £56m for the freehold asset, reflecting a net initial yield of 5.75%.
The fully operational scheme includes 264 student bedrooms – a mix of 250 studios, eight one-bedroom and six two-bedroom apartments, providing much-needed housing for Oxford-based students. Amenities include a gym, cinema room, games room, rooftop terraces and student lounges.
The sale also includes six commercial units, which produce a net income of £419,500 per annum and includes tenants such as Tesco Express and Iceland.
Residents living at the West Way Square PBSA development benefit from convenient access to the University of Oxford and Oxford Brookes University, which are ranked first and 57th respectively in the UK according to the Times Good University Guide 2023. Oxford is also home to a total of 34,946 full time students, of which 31% are international.
“This is an excellent opportunity to acquire prime PBSA in one of the most desirable global cities for university education. Oxford is currently experiencing restricted planning policies which will affect the future pipeline of new PBSA development in the city, with only 339 private PBSA beds in the pipeline. As a result, a fully operational and income producing assets such as West Way Square will likely generate a substantial pool of interested buyers.”
Mike O’Sullivan, Partner in the Student Property team, Knight Frank
The UK is still struggling through a drastic undersupply crisis of student beds. According to Knight Frank, full-time students outnumber available bed spaces by a 3:1 ratio in several key regions. Alongside this, the number of full-time undergraduate students across the UK will increase by 16% by the end of the decade.
