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Off to university? Wave goodbye to your bedroom at home

Christina Hoghton
Written By:
Christina Hoghton
Posted:
Updated:
15/08/2019

Students’ bedrooms are set to be repurposed into guest bedrooms, gyms and studies

A-level results are due out tomorrow but students don’t just have to worry about their grades – but what their parents will do with their bedroom when they leave for university.

AA Financial Services asked 2,091 British adults to imagine if they had a child who was planning to leave home later this summer to start university, what plans, if any, they had to convert the space into something new.

Two-thirds (66 per cent) of parents said they would be “repurposing” their child’s bedroom as soon as they leave home. AA Financial Services found that nearly a third (29 per cent) planned to turn the empty room into a guest bedroom, while 17 per cent would turn it into a study, and 13 per cent a hobby or games room.

Families with three or more children were the most likely to rent out a room in order to pocket some extra cash, with one in 10 (11 per cent) considering this.

A third (34 per cent) of parents would leave the room untouched for when their kids came home from university.

Savings and disposable cash were two biggest ways parents would finance the improvements (48 per cent and 42 per cent). One in 10 (11 per cent) parents would put the cost on a credit card, while 5 per cent would take out a personal loan.

Warren D’Souza, head of insight at AA Personal Finance, said: “Many families will soon be waving goodbye to their kids as they go off to university later this summer.

“Whilst this is a difficult transition for many, our findings suggest that many people have alternative, and potentially exciting, ideas on how they will repurpose the empty rooms left behind.

“For many parents, the sad departure of their child is a signal for the start of a new DIY undertaking or similar project to focus on.”