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Colm Lauder: Accusations of greed miss point of cost escalations

Changes to how student accommodation are leased is being driven by costs not avarice

Estate agents Knight Frank recently estimated that there is only one bed space for every two students in the four main university cities of Dublin, Cork, Galway, and Limerick

There has been much written about the purpose-built student accommodation sector in Ireland in recent weeks, as operators were criticised for moving to a 12-month model, compared to the previous 9-month academic term approach.

This was presented, unsurprisingly, as investors being greedy and trying to maximise returns in another structurally undersupplied part of the Irish property market. Of course, the harsh reality of these changes to operating models is that many investors are trying to ...