The dorm of a new era

Private student accommodation occupies its own specific niche in the PRS market. Poland has an abundance of universities and colleges, many of which are attractive to foreign students. According to Statistics Poland, over the 2020/2021 academic year there were just over 1.2 mln students in Poland, including 85,000 from abroad. However, according to a recent report by CBRE, only one in ten students will find a place in student halls and in most cases those are publicly owned. So it’s very much a case of: if you build them, they will come. “Currently, in Poland there are 10,000 places in private student residences, which represents around 7.5 pct of the total supply in the country – and this reveals how tiny the share of the market the private segment takes up. Over the last few years, it has exhibited a high, two-figure growth rate; but then again, it has started from a very low base,” explains Katarzyna Tencza, the associate director for investment and hospitali