Real Estate Matters | Student housing in Macau

Sam Lee

If you browse through news related to international property, you often come across articles about the ‘student housing market’, which generally refers to the rental market for university students.

You hear about investors converting family homes into student accommodation, institutional players building massive student complexes and landlords specifically targeting student rentals.

But in Macau you don’t seem to hear much about the student market. Why is this?

First of all, the student rental market just isn’t very big in relative terms. Some universities overseas enroll tens of thousands of students and are large enough to be an independent economic ecosystem where the entire town revolves around the students and services catered for them.

By contrast, our largest university, the University of Macao, has just shy of 10,000 students total. Since Macau is so small, most of the 6350 local students stay at home with their parents. There are about 3,600 mainland and international students and a good bulk of them stay at the student residences provided by the university and only enter the retail residential market in their 3rd or 4th years, if at all.

Unlike some foreign markets where there are customized accommodation options that welcome students, the students who do need to find a place to rent on their own receive no special treatment.

In fact, when they are in their third or fourth year, which is when they are most likely to need a place because they want a quieter space to focus on their studies before graduating, they find that landlords prefer not to take student tenants because they are worried about not receiving rents or the students drinking and smoking in the apartment.

So is there room for creative landlords to target the student market and create a win-win situation? Perhaps. We are already seeing short- term accommodation options targeted towards exchange students and short-term interns coming on the market who otherwise have a very hard time with traditional landlords.

Some tenants sub-lease entire apartments and rooms to students, often illegally because the landlords don’t know about it.

Although there is room for improved efficiency for student accommodation options, in general Macau is a vibrant and welcoming city for all students.

Sam Lee is a marketing manager and property consultant at JML Property.  JML was established in 1994 and offers Investment Property & Homes. It specializes in managing properties for owners and investors, and providing attractive and comfortable homes for tenants.

www.JMLProperty.com

info@JMLProperty.com