UCDSU, TCDSU and Daft.ie Launch Campaign for Student Beds

UCDSU has teamed up with TCDSU and Daft.ie for a campaign which aims to increase the number of beds available to students on the Dublin housing market. The joint project aims to encourage more homeowners to let out empty rooms to students by advertising the associated tax breaks. Homeowners can earn up to €14,000 tax free by letting out rooms in their primary residence.UCDSU and TCDSU Presidents, Katie Ascough and Kevin Keane respectively, hope the project will make hundreds of new beds available to students.The month of August regularly sees a surge of students seeking accommodation following the release of Leaving Certificate results and CAO offers. With soaring rent prices and a reluctance among landlords and homeowners to provide student accommodation, finding a place to live is one of the biggest challenges facing new and continuing students.To encourage more homeowners to lease empty rooms to students, the project will see adverts placed on Daft.ie, Donedeal.ie, and Adverts.ie using geo-targeted advertising.Along with the advertising of available tax breaks, the project will feature blog testimonials from homeowners and students who have been involved in letting and renting digs accommodation.Speaking about the campaign, President of UCDSU Katie Ascough says “Digs are a student-specific solution to the current housing crisis. There’s over 120,000 empty nesters in Ireland and there are even more people who simply have an empty room in their property. That’s a lot of vacant beds in an overcrowded housing market. If we can widely relay information on the associated tax breaks that come with digs, we should be able to put hundreds of new beds on a starved market in time for September. The type of people who go for digs beds are inclined to be good tenants... Ultimately, both students and homeowners can greatly benefit from digs accommodation.”UCDSU are also running a campaign on snapchat to reveal the horrors of the housing market for students. The snapchat username is "ucdsu".For continuing and potential UCD students looking for digs accommodation, UCD Accommodation Pad, run by the UCD Residences Booking & Support Office, is available here.