The University of Birmingham has been ranked third best in the UK for rental prices, according to a survey run by Sellhousefast.uk, who looked at the best cities in the UK for students to rent properties in. In first and second place are the University of Sheffield and the University of Coventry, whose average rent prices are £863 (PCM) and £917 (PCM) respectively. Ranked third on the list, the University of Birmingham’s average rent price was found to be £1,028 per calendar month (rent prices taken from home.co.uk’s property search tool). 

Birmingham also placed sixth on charts ran by both Top Universities and TotallyMoney.com which ranked the cheapest UK cities for students. 

While Birmingham does well for price, it lacks in the actual number of properties available with merely 572 properties to rent within a one-mile radius of the University, compared with the 1,630 in Coventry (figures from Zoopla). This means the stress of looking for houses starts as early as September and October for students. 

One first-year student, Ruth Ellis, told Redbrick: ‘I feel like the housing situation causes a lot of unnecessary stress to students, as there is so much pressure on us to decide who we want to live with so early on.’  

Another student, Isabel Pendleton, said that ‘the housing situation feels really rushed, and pressure from landlords caused us to put a deposit on a house really quickly as we didn’t want to end up with no house at all.’

The University of Birmingham also succeeds when it comes to accommodation provided by the university for first year students and is placed 17th on the Times Higher Education Student Experience Survey 2018 for student accommodation. The university offers accommodation in three different locations: Selly Oak Village, Pritchatts Park Village, and The Vale, as well as partnered accommodation which is within a two-mile radius of the University. Prices start off at just £89 a week (Maple Bank on The Vale) and reach up to £203 (Chamberlain, also on The Vale). 

Due to the large number of students, some first years end up in partnered accommodation off campus. Hannah Joint, a first year, living in Liberty Gardens, one of the universities partnered accommodations told Redbrick: ‘Liberty Gardens is lovely, and the maintenance is good,’ but said that the distance between the accommodation and the University can be inconvenient. The University website states that Liberty Gardens is a 35-minute walk from the University, or a 15-minute bus. Joint says ‘it is such a journey from the uni, especially if you miss the shuttle bus.’