Most landlords find out the rules changed when the beds are already empty.
A monthly brief on the policy, funding and compliance decisions that move student accommodation in South Africa, and what each one actually does to a property. Written by Retha van Rooyen.
The information exists. It is just unreadable.
Every decision that changes your occupancy gets published somewhere. A gazette. A SAQA notice. A committee minute nobody reads. By the time it reaches you it has been through three rounds of rewriting and arrives as a rumour in a WhatsApp group, usually wrong and usually late.
I read the source documents because I have to. I run student accommodation and the same decisions land on my properties. This brief is what I pull out of that reading once a month, written for someone who owns beds rather than someone who works in policy.
What changed
The decisions that were actually taken, with the document they came from, so you can check me.
What it costs you
The number that matters. Not the headline number, the one that hits a property.
What to do about it
Dates that belong in your diary, and my call on what I would do, marked clearly as my call.
All of it, free.
Every issue goes out in full, to everyone on the list. The main story of the month, the numbers behind it, the dates that belong in your diary, and my call on what I would do, marked clearly as my call. Not a teaser paragraph. The whole brief.
Forward it to whoever you like. If it is useful to someone who owns student beds, I would rather they read it than not.
It is free because the brief gets better the more owners read it and write back. What you send me shapes what I go and find out the following month.
Get the free briefThis is Issue 03.
The February Accreditation Problem
Thursday 1 October 2026, 3,600 words, about 14 minutes
Why a court order, a R616 million bill and a promised rewrite of the cap all land on your 2027 rent
The date on your NSFAS offer letter that nobody in government has mentioned
What a lapsed accreditation would cost you, and why the queue to fix one is already long
The checks to run on every property this month, before the December shutdown
Written by me, not by a team.
I am Retha van Rooyen. I run My Student House, which manages student accommodation across Cape Town, Potchefstroom, Port Elizabeth, Gauteng and Bloemfontein. Every policy change in this brief lands on properties I am responsible for, which is why I read the documents myself and why I will tell you when I do not know something.
The LinkedIn edition of this brief is read by 478 people. This one goes deeper and comes with the numbers.
How often does it come?
What do I actually get?
What does it cost?
Can I forward it?
The next issue goes out at the start of the month.
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