The Story of How a Luxury City Centre Apartment Block Becomes a Student Halls of Residence - A Warning for Landlords

Good block / bad block - this is the question many landlords should be asking about their city centre investments.

The potential value of any block of flats, sorry I mean apartments in a city centre location is the quality of the people who live in them.

Now when I say this I don't want to sound snobbish or judgmental. So I apologise if this is how I sound.

I am purely looking at this from an investor angle - so therefore financially.

However the reality is that well heeled buyers or tenants aren't going to want to live in a block populated by loads of students for one simple reason.

They are well heeled for a reason, because they get up early, work hard and need a good nights sleep after a long day.

Students in contrast lay in bed till noon, drift out after Loose Women (the TV show) and drink and party until 2.00am. Return to the apartment block, slam a few doors, sing a bit along the corridors, put some toast on, switch on the music and chat till 5, before passing out( forgetting to switch the music off).

The well heeled occupant gets up the next morning, heads out to Starbucks for a coffee ,grabbing a local property guide from the newsagents on the way.

And so this cycle continues until the luxury apartment block is the new local university hall of residence.

The problem for landlords or property investors if they may get a slightly improved rental by cramming in a gang of students into their two bed apartment, but they could be destroying the capital value of their property.

Landlords have been warned.

My advice would be for blocks to take control of the situation on blocks with a large buy-to-let ownership and for the management to draw up strict,restrictions on the types of tenants excepted.