And the winner is ... no one

Ah, student digs: broken furniture, stained carpets, holes in the walls, indefinable but deeply unpleasant smells. Materially, things have probably improved a bit in the last two decades - but it seems that landlords (whether individuals or companies) are arguably even more money-grabbing, viewing students as nothing more than cash cows to be milked dry. That's the conclusion to be drawn from the refusal of the student-led judging panel of Property Week's Student Accommodation Award to pick a winner from the shortlist handed to them. A decent and principled stand, to be sure, but don't expect it to have much impact - student landlords are a notoriously shameless bunch.