There is still a big supply gap in Australia for purpose-built student accommodation, with only 58,109 beds in the top six Australian cities despite the fact there are 1.3 million students studying here, a report from JLL shows. Australia is the fifth most popular study destination for international students behind the USA, the UK, Germany and France.

JLL’s Australian Student Accommodation Market Update 2015 reports that Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane all provide less than one bedroom of purpose built accommodation for every ten students. This compares to a more established market such as London, where the ratio is over two-and-a-half beds per 10 students. According to the report, 981,427 of the current 1.3 million international and domestic students in Australia study in New South Wales, Victoria or Queensland.

Melbourne has the biggest gap at 69,323 beds, while Sydney is half this number at 29,361 and Brisbane comes in the lowest at a gap of 15,309 bedrooms. JLL estimates that the increase in supply of purpose built accommodation has been 8.7 percent in the past 12 months or equivalent to an extra 4,647 bedrooms.

“While the analysis doesn’t include what kind of demand that exists from the international student market in each state for purpose built accommodation, it does show that there is a big gap between the existing and pipeline of supply of this type of housing," said JLL’s Director of Student Accommodation, Conal Newland. “This gap analysis is predicated on the current pipeline of supply in all states of 20,471 bedrooms being delivered. Brisbane currently has the highest pipeline of accommodation to be developed at 8,661 beds, Melbourne has 6,856 beds and Sydney is the lowest at 4,954 beds to be delivered over the next 5 years.