Don't get suckered by student accommodation

There could be a time when investing in student accommodation makes sense, says Merryn Somerset Webb. But that time isn't now.

There are so many irritating things about the UK property market that it is hard to know where to start with the complaining. But at the moment, the thing that is bothering me most is this idea that we have somehow escaped the kind of property crashes that other bubble markets have had.

We haven't. House prices across the UK are still down about 20% in inflation-adjusted terms, and there has been a proper crash in the north and in Northern Ireland. But the government flatly refuses to allow house prices to fall to market clearing levels, so a huge number of people still believe that property is, and always will be, the safest investment there is.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.