We do one thing: Oxford student HMOs. Nothing else. No family homes. No retirement flats. No commercial units. No executive relocations. No single-let buy-to-lets.
That narrow focus is the entire point of the business. It’s what lets us know the licensing zones, the Article 4 map, the streets students actually walk to lectures on, the rent that genuinely lets when the market tightens, the specific Oxford City Council case officers, the patterns in Selective Licensing ward enforcement. You don’t get that from a division bolted onto a generalist agency. You get it from a business that only has one job.
If you own a family home in Summertown that you want managed, we are the wrong agent for you and we’ll tell you. If you own an HMO in Cowley that you want managed properly, we are exactly the right agent — and that’s all we do.
Oxford is a city of distinct student neighbourhoods, and they don’t behave the same way. As a specialist student letting agent in Oxford, we work the streets students actually live on — and we know what each one lets for, who it lets to, and how fast.
Cowley Road & East Oxford
Victorian terraces, the highest HMO density in the city.
Headington
Brookes territory, and the hospitals.
Iffley Road & Iffley Fields
Quieter, by the river and the sports grounds.
Jericho & North Oxford
Premium, graduate-focused.
Marston
Postgraduates and medical students.
Botley & West Oxford
More affordable, steady demand.
The founder’s perspective
Luke Hanshaw, Founder — the person who will answer your call.
I have been the student in the badly managed house, and I have been the landlord watching an agent do nothing. Oxford Student Homes exists because I know exactly how both of those feel.
Luke founded Oxford Student Homes because he had lived both sides of it.
He was a student tenant in Oxford first — four years renting in the same kind of HMOs he now manages. Cold houses in November. Landlords you couldn’t reach. Deposit disputes that dragged through the summer. Contracts that made you sign for things you didn’t understand. He also saw the good side of it: the landlords who fixed the boiler within the day, who gave their number to all five housemates, who returned deposits promptly and without fuss. He learned early what separated the two.
Later, Luke became a student landlord himself. That’s when he saw the other half of the picture — the midnight boiler calls, the compliance paperwork landing three at a time, the weekends lost to admin that shouldn’t have been admin. He asked one question throughout: why can’t any of this be done properly? Why can’t the landlord know what’s happening in real time? Why does maintenance need to take three weeks? Why is compliance treated as a reactive task rather than a calendar? Why do tenants and landlords end up feeling like they’re on opposite sides when a well-run property makes both of their lives better?
Oxford Student Homes is the answer to those questions.
And because “properly” has to mean something you can check — not just a word on a website — Luke put the formal foundations in place before taking on a single property. Propertymark qualified — Level 3 Certificate in Property Agency (Lettings). The agency is a member of The Property Ombudsman redress scheme, holds Client Money Protection — so rent is protected, not just promised — and is registered with the ICO for data protection. None of it is glamorous. All of it is what “properly” looks like when written down.
Accredited, insured, accountable:
Oxford Student Homes is a Propertymark member—the professional body for UK letting agents. Client money is protected by Propertymark Client Money Protection (membership C0142401), covering up to £50,000 per individual claim, and we hold professional indemnity insurance. We are a member of The Property Ombudsman redress scheme, registered with the ICO for data protection (ZC141643), and a limited company registered in England & Wales, no. 16699598.
What we actually believe
Student HMOs are good investments when they’re run properly, and they’re painful ones when they aren’t.
A landlord should know what their property is doing at any moment — not quarterly, not when something breaks, but live.
A well-treated tenant deserves a home that’s safe, comfortable, and fixed quickly when something goes wrong. These aren’t in opposition — they reinforce each other.
How we measure whether we're doing this right.
Three things.
Compliance
Every certificate on every property tracked to its expiry date, and renewed before it lapses.
Tenant satisfaction
The leading indicator of renewals and referrals, so we treat it as one.
Landlord clarity
You can see the full status of your property at any moment, from the portal, without asking.
Find out what your Oxford HMO could really be doing.
Book a free 30-minute consultation.
We’ll review your compliance, yield, and management setup and give you an honest picture of what we’d do differently.
No obligation. No sales pitch.