Life is unpredictable. We’ve partnered with Getsafe to bring affordable and flexible insurance to Housemates customers.

Given the past 12 months, we think it's fair to say that life is unpredictable. That’s why, when you book your accommodation for university, it’s also important to consider if you have adequate protection for your belongings in the event of accidents or mishaps, especially if you’re planning to bring an expensive laptop, phone or bike.

In line with our mission to make student moves smooth and secure, we’ve partnered with Getsafe to give everyone who books accommodation with Housemates £50 credit* towards Getsafe’s easy and affordable contents insurance policies. 

If Housemates is the digital student accommodation platform, by allowing you to book your accommodation securely online without hassle, Getsafe is doing the same thing for insurance with a safe, online process that allows you to secure your belongings in minutes, without any physical paperwork. 

Getsafe goes a step further than most insurers, by allowing you to manage your policy where you manage everything else - on your mobile. Better still, you’re able to change or cancel your policy at any time without administration fees - perfect for the ups-and-downs of student life, especially during a pandemic.

As you may know, Housemates has been calling for increased flexibility for students, especially during current events, so we’re thrilled to partner with Getsafe to provide this offer. Plus, with a “great”, 4-star rating on TrustPilot, you’re in good hands.

With Getsafe, you are able to customise your policy to your exact needs. You will need to provide the value of contents in your student home, these will then be covered if they are damaged due to fire, water, storms, burglary and other incidents. 

You’re then able to add on extras, such as accidental damage or out-of-home coverage for personal possessions such as a mobile or laptop. It’s important to read your policy documents thoroughly to understand what is and isn’t covered. Your accommodation provider may already have some insurance in place, it’s best to check. You can find out more about Getsafe and what their policies cover on the Getsafe website.

To get the offer, all you have to do is book your student accommodation through Housemates. Once you’ve booked your accommodation, we’ll send you the details to set up your Getsafe policy with £50 credit*. You will need to set up your policy before the Getsafe offer expires on the 31st of May 2021, but you are able to set the policy start date in the future.

To get started, just head to our homepage and search for your city or university. 

Accommodation is central to student life. Here we compare accommodation search platforms Housemates, Rightmove and Spareroom.

When it comes to searching for student accommodation, there are plenty of online and bricks-and-mortar services available to help you find a place to stay, many of which are well-known brands that you may have seen advertised, such as Rightmove and Spareroom. Then there’s Housemates, a new platform built specifically for students which allows you to book accommodation securely online.

Seeing as you’ll be spending so much time in your accommodation, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, it couldn’t be more important that you find the right place. To do that, you’ll want to start with an accommodation service that meets your specific needs as a student; be that for full transparency, speedy bookings, or increased rental security. 

Let’s look at how Housemates compares to some of the most popular options.

Rightmove is among the most well-known platforms for rental property searches in the UK, you may have seen their adverts on TV or at bus stops. Rightmove and similar platforms are particularly popular with UK students looking to rent private houses or apartments in groups. 

As Rightmove has been around for a long time, it’s popular for landlords and letting agents to list properties there, ensuring plenty of choice for students. Although, Rightmove is also used for the wider property market so most properties on this platform are not available for students. Be sure to check whether students are accepted on each listing before you proceed.

Once you do find a suitable property, you are able to make an enquiry by calling or emailing the landlord or agent who has published the listing. However, this can be quite a time-consuming process and most agents or landlords usually take a while to reply, many will not even respond at all. So in the meantime, it’s best to keep looking elsewhere or you could miss out.

Whatever you do, make sure you book a viewing, as many student houses and apartments are not well maintained by the owners and you don’t want to run into problems later with faulty appliances, mould or something else which will be uncomfortable to live with. Ideally, you’ll want to view the place in person, but if you can’t, many agents are now offering virtual tours due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

As of 2019, new laws have been brought in to prevent letting agents or landlords from charging any hidden fees in England and Wales. Similar rules already applied in Scotland. It’s best to familiarise yourself with these rules if you intend to rent a private house or apartment. However, you will likely need to send a refundable holding deposit to reserve the property before signing the tenancy agreement, and then a refundable security deposit to cover any damages or issues during your tenancy. Some landlords and agents may try to keep this deposit for unfair reasons at the end of the tenancy, such as general wear and tear, so be sure to understand your rights or you could lose out.

Having to use letting agents or landlords

Lack of information about properties online

Many properties are not suitable for students

Tenancy periods are usually 12 months, rather than 9

SpareRoom offers a similar style of service to Rightmove, but for landlords and tenants looking to sublet an individual room rather than an entire property. That makes it useful if you’re moving to a new city and need a place to stay but don’t know anyone there yet, so long as you’re happy to live with new people. Usually, the kitchen and bathroom are shared.

Again, once you find a property suitable for students, you can send a message or give the person who listed the room a call. It’s best for you to schedule a viewing to check the property is up to a good standard and you might also want to have a quick call or meet-up with the other residents in the property to check you’ll get on well enough. 

Whilst it's a good platform for finding properties and housemates, it can be quite a time consuming and tiresome process to find a suitable place and people you’re comfortable to live with. 

The same rules apply in terms of deposits, rent and fees, though if you’re paying rent through the other residents on a more casual basis, you may have less legal protection if something goes wrong. You should also be more vigilant when searching with Spareroom, as anyone can make a listing which increases the risk of fraudulent activity.

Lots of single rooms, sharing with new people

Not always free (pay to contact Early Bird listings)

Housemates is a brand new student accommodation platform that allows you to book instantly online, just like you would when reserving a hotel room. Whilst the platform doesn’t have any private houses like Rightmove or Spareroom, as a “student-first” business, all of the properties on Housemates are built specifically for students, so you won’t have to sift through listings just to find a place that accepts you. 

Housemates has rooms at all price points, ranging from budget-friendly student halls to luxury hotel-like boutique residences in a growing number of cities in the UK and Ireland. Though, regardless of your budget and whether you book by yourself or as a group, you’ll be amongst a community of like-minded students in any of the properties on Housemates, many of which have social spaces and gyms included which could save you money overall. Utility bills, including water, energy, broadband and TV licenses are also accounted for in most properties, saving you from further hours of unnecessary research and unexpected costs.

All of the properties on Housemates have dedicated, on-site maintenance teams who are able to respond to incidents quickly and keep the living spaces in good condition, creating a more comfortable living environment. Whilst it’s still recommended that you have a virtual viewing, you can be more confident if you aren’t able to do so. 

When you find a property that you are happy with, you can select your room type and tenancy period and then book it instantly online by paying the reservation payment listed on the site. This payment is completely secure and will be refunded by the accommodation operator when you pay your first month’s rent.

If you change your mind, you have 14 days to cancel the booking and receive a full refund. After that point, you’re still protected if you don’t manage to get your university place, your visa application is denied or you can’t get into the UK due to COVID-19 restrictions. By booking with Housemates, you receive an experience that’s customised to your student lifestyle, saving you the need to research the finer details of property law. 

By allowing you to book directly online, you’re able to arrange your accommodation without waiting for an agent to respond. However, if you do need to speak to a real person about a virtual viewing, group booking or something else, this can be done via the live-chat facility on the platform. 

Advanced cancellation (No university place/no visa/COVID-19 travel restrictions)

In-person viewings not currently available for all properties

Booking UK student accommodation: Rightmove, Spareroom or Housemates

We interview Jake Fox and Mafalda Casanova from Paperound and learn how the platform is gearing students up for a shifting graduate landscape

Media coverage often paints a false narrative of students behind childish, naive trouble-makers. In our Starts with a Student series, we’re putting the spotlight on students and recent graduates who are finding creative approaches to navigate the strange new world we live in.

For our first story, I virtually met with Lancaster University graduate, Jake Fox, who founded on-demand student resource site Paperound in 2020. I also spoke to Mafalda Casanova, a first-year undergraduate at Lancaster University, who is a “Student Tasker'' on the site.

In 2016, when Jake graduated from his Entrepreneurship and Management degree, he was, by his own words, “lucky” to get an internship at a consultancy firm where he worked on market research projects on tech, finance and retail sectors for four years.

Jake found that having almost no connections made it much harder for him to gain any of the real experience needed to land a job and firmly believes that young people and recent grads should be seen and rewarded for their “hard work and grit”, rather than their contacts. He is someone who likes to roll up his sleeves and get to work, describing himself as a “bit of a generalist”, who enjoys problem-solving and providing creative solutions.

“I had to work really hard to get this role, I was so lucky to get in, and my replacement was the daughter of one of our clients. She just walked in.”

During his internship, Jake was also working towards his Masters in Economics and Finance for Development at the University of Bradford, as well as building a sports-tech tennis startup. Then, after completing his masters, Jake went to work for Free, a start-up which helps people sell their house without fees. 

Whilst still in his role at Free, Jake launched Paperound towards the end of 2020. The site allows students to access ad-hoc, paid work alongside their studies. As well as helping students to earn some money, Jake says the service should help students to secure a graduate job by using the skills they’ve learned from university projects and societies on real-world, paid-for tasks directly with employers.

“It solves that student and graduate problem of struggling to get any experience, but needing that experience to enter the workplace.”

It also solves a problem for businesses, particularly for startups or smaller businesses who may not be able to commit to a full hire, but have work that needs to be done. Jake hopes that Paperound will make it quicker and easier to get somebody working on these tasks. After all, who wants to create extra hassle to get work done? 

He also mentions that in response to the remote working shift, many traditional companies, not just startups, are looking for ways to hire students and grads. Where traditionally they may just come in the office for a few hours a week, Paperound is a digital solution for that which also fits the student lifestyle.

Now based in Brighton, Jake runs an online interview with every student who joins the platform, ensuring that they are ready to work with businesses professionally and equipping them with essential skills to do so.

In the future, Jake hopes the site will facilitate connections between students and employers, providing a discovery platform for graduates - all without requiring a big commitment for students who get to choose their hours and the sort of work they're looking to do. With payments also managed securely through the platform, students are protected from the late payments often associated with freelance work.

In hiring students for the platform, Jake has had the best response when reaching out to societies and students directly. Mafalda Casanova, in her first year at Lancaster University, is one student who he worked with previously and then invited to join the platform. 

Speaking to Mafalda, it’s clear to see that she is both ambitious and proactive. Despite the setbacks that Covid-19 has caused, she is keen to be independent and Paperound has provided her with a great opportunity to gain experience on her terms far before being dealt an academic cap and certificate.

Mafalda researched other platforms, such as Fiverr, but found that they were not student-friendly and felt that she needed more experience to use them - partly because of how complex they were, but also because she wasn’t comfortable being among freelancers who had been working in their fields for several years.

The chance to dabble in many fields is something Mafalda also enjoys. Writing, graphic design, social media management and admin tasks are all among her skillset and having the chance to flex and grow these abilities is helping Mafalda to figure out where she could be in the future. 

Speaking about how her time at university is going, Mafalda shared that she has been back at home in Portugal since November. Just a single session on campus per week meant she chose to leave for the winter holidays early. Whilst empathising with teaching staff, Mafalda’s university experience has certainly been different. 

Despite “seven days of awesomeness” on arrival, where Mafalda was able to meet other students, she has chosen not to join any societies or social events out of screen-time fatigue, something we can all relate to right now. The ability to find work through Paperound which she can undertake from outside the country has therefore been important for her. She’s had three bookings so far, and since running the interview for this article, Housemates commissioned Mafalda to write an article about the student stories behind the #SaveOurStudents campaign.

If you want to learn more, you can visit the Paperound website.

Do you know a student or graduate who’s doing great things? Share the story with us at media@housemates.io. 

How Paperound is changing the world of part-time student work

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Places to stay in Liverpool

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Free cancellation
if things change

Read our latest blog posts

Getsafe: Flexible insurance for students

Booking UK student accommodation: Rightmove, Spareroom or Housemates

How Paperound is changing the world of part-time student work

Find your perfect place

Stay updated!

Find your place

Discover and book verified student accommodation in minutes today. Student moves, made smooth.

Places to stay in Liverpool

Places to stay in London

Places to stay in Dublin

Free cancellation if things change

Read our latest blog posts

Getsafe: Flexible insurance for students

Booking UK student accommodation: Rightmove, Spareroom or Housemates

How Paperound is changing the world of part-time student work

Find your perfect place

Stay updated!

Free cancellation
if things change