@FabfabfabWe have been thinking about the Exeter accommodation position too, as it’s a possible insurance for DD. We really liked it when we visited. Neighbour’s DD is a first-year there and currently home for Christmas. She is in private halls, but very happy and settled and full of how wonderful it is.
It is clear that Exeter experienced a real pinch point on accommodation for the current first-years. They are building new accommodation on the Streatham campus but it’s not going to be ready for the 2026 intake. In order to do that they had to demolish some older halls on campus. At the same time they received 23% more firm acceptances for 2025 than they did for 2024 (source: University of Exeter Council minutes). This meant that there was little or nothing left for insurance applicants after those who had firmed had been made an accommodation offer. The university honoured its accommodation promise to all those coming who had firmed, but had to go into partnership with private providers in order to do so. Thus not everyone who had firmed is spending their first year on campus.
The good news is that there is ample student accommodation in the city of Exeter if you include private halls. It’s a one-university city, so halls are not competed for by other universities. It is a small city, so nothing is too far away from campus. Compare e.g. Manchester, which has been known recently to offer students £1,000 to live in Preston.
The bad news (and this applies across the sector) is that private purpose-built halls are less likely than university-owned halls to offer a significant range of price points. If they do, the choice may be between expensive and even more expensive. This may well become an even more acute problem in many university cities in 2nd year and beyond, as the Renters Rights Act drives HMO landlords out of the market and the owners of purpose-built halls (exempt from the provisions of the Act) cash in.