Ending panic-signing: introducing predicted houses and price history

Competition works best when people have perfect information. Knowing every tiny detail about what’s on offer makes things fairer for everyone, letting everyone make a reasoned decision about the money they spend. People can choose the best option for them, letting people’s diverse value systems determine the flow of money rather than random chance.

For too long, the housing market in York has constrained student choice by applying short deadlines that make this kind of careful decision making impossible. With the pressure of houses disappearing just days after they come online, and the complexity of getting multiple people to agree, students are handing out up to three-quarters of their income without being able to make an objective decision.

A culture of pressure-selling and panic-signing has developed, making York fertile ground for a whole host of misleading and unethical practices from landlords and letting agents.

What students need is more time to make a decision. More time to compare houses to see what each is missing. More time to discuss with our future housemates. More time to understand the contract we’re about to sign.

Finding houses before they are released

Releasing houses earlier won’t make much difference, as they’ll just be claimed earlier. The whole signing process will be just as rushed, but earlier in the year.

At Student House Finder, we want to invoke real change in the sector by encouraging a more careful, reasoned timeline. In our eyes the only way to do that is to decouple the searching stage from the signing stage.

If we can show you the houses that are about to come to market, you can begin comparing them and finding suitable places without rushing - in the same way that university hall allocation works. Your group can foresee the problems that might come up, and agree on exactly what you want without unnecessary time pressure. Then, when houses are released, you can sign with the confidence that you’ve found something that perfectly fits your needs.

How predictions work on Student House Finder

It’s not all that difficult for us to predict the houses that are about to become available. We take the previous year’s data, and find houses that came online at around the same time - and now we’re showing the results to you alongside every other house that is available.

Of course, this assumes that letting agents are releasing each house at around the same date every year. There are quite a few exceptions to this, such as when a group of housemates stay on for a second year in the same house, in which case the property will never reach the market. Then there’s simply letting agents choosing to change how and when they release houses.

This does reduce the accuracy of our predictions - you shouldn’t rely on a particular house becoming available. But you can use our predictions to see what’s available on the market and to make a rough shortlist. You’ll be able to start conversations about where to live with a wider picture of York’s housing - no more guessing or going from rumours.

How much is this house really worth?

We also track the price history of each house, which we’re now publishing so you can see whether it has gone up or down: week-to-week, or year-to-year. These go back to at least Spring 2025, with partial data for 2024. You’ll be able to see when a price has gone up suddenly - like after an extension or refurbishment; equally you can see price cuts, which might happen if a house isn’t as popular, providing vital contextual information.

This will mean you’ve got a more complete picture of what the market thinks a house is worth. With our data you can be more strategic when you’re speaking to landlords, like by understanding when they could be prepared to lower the price to finish the signing process as quickly as possible.

These two innovations will cool the market and improve competition between landlords. People will better be able to tell how much a house is really worth and have the information to be able to strategise; decisions will be more scientific and less pressure-based. Students will feel more secure waiting for better housing deals, limiting letting agents’ ability to dictate prices and creating a fairer market for all.