King’s named UK’s worst university for student renters

King’s College London is the worst university in the UK for student living due to prohibitively high rents near campus, according to property company Sell House Fast. Using data from home.co.uk and Zoopla, the company found that while there were a comparatively high number of properties available near KCL, the average rent per calendar month was almost £6,000.

Compared to its traditional rival University College London, King’s also does not fare well. Within a one-mile radius of UCL, Sell House Fast identified a total of 1517 properties available to rent in comparison to KCL’s 868. King’s average rent came in at £5,953 pcm, with UCL at £3,393.

Both UCL and King’s have a comparatively high number of rentable properties near campus, though perhaps unsurprisingly fared poorly against non-London campuses on the list in terms of rent prices. 

King’s average rent prices near campus are over £5000 more than the University of Sheffield, which topped the list at £863 pcm. Coventry came first in terms of the number of available properties, with 1,630.

The news of inaccessibly high rent prices near King’s comes shortly after reports of freshers and some second-year students being turned away from their halls of residence due to a shortage of rooms. Some were forced to move to more expensive and less accessible accommodation upon arrival or with just a few hours’ notice.