Spain & Portugal: promising markets for student housing, but with a highlighted need for more ESG innovation
Portugal and Spain have been turning investor attention to their growing student housing market for the past few years as international students come into Iberia in increasing numbers every year. From 2015 – 2021, there was there was an 55.5% increase in international students attending Portuguese universities, while Spain experienced an increase of over 20% in international students over the past 5 years.
This growth in the number of young people in the higher education sector can be attributed to a highly diverse number of factors. Besides the attractiveness of Iberia’s beautiful cities, quality of life and culture, many reasons can be attributed to developments in the pan-European international education landscape of recent years.
The expansion of initiatives such as the Erasmus program and universities consolidating with accommodation providers, have allowed for greater student mobility in recent years, or at least a surge in interest for studying abroad.
The number of student beds, however, have not been able to keep up with the soaring demand. In Portugal, the provision rates in Lisbon and Porto are still below the European average. Between Lisbon and Porto, the supply of PBSA is approximately 6,000 beds, and other academic cities such as Coimbra, Braga, Aveiro, Évora and Covilhã are still severely lacking accommodation. Meanwhile, there were more than 410,000 university students in 2022 …