guaRENTeed.Helping universities give students a better private rental experience.
We asked students to provide detailed reviews of the houses they lived in, then gave the full data to other students to help them make an informed decision about their next house. For universities, this data can help students have a more positive experience, both where they live and at university.
Why we built this
Where students live shapes their whole time at university. Yet most choose a house with very little to go on.
Source: Save the Student, National Student Accommodation Survey 2026 (1,149 students).
Students are often unhappy with where they live
Damp, mould, broken heating and slow repairs come up again and again, in national surveys and in our own pilot.
A big decision, made on very little
Students sign a year-long contract after a short viewing, or none at all. Reviews from the people who actually lived there give them the information a viewing can't.
Transparency raises standards
When housing quality is visible, landlords and letting agents have a clear reason to fix problems and improve their properties, which improves life for every student who lives there next.
Built with universities
We want to work with universities to shape a product that helps them give their students a better experience, from the first house hunt onwards.
What this means for your university
Private renting happens off campus, but its effects show up in your students' wellbeing, your advice services and your local community.
Support student wellbeing
Cold, damp homes and disputes with landlords weigh on students all year. Better information before they sign could help more of them avoid the worst houses in the first place.
Help your housing advice team
See the problems students report, street by street, before they turn into advice cases, and point students to real evidence when they're choosing a house.
Evidence for local conversations
Student reviews give you data on housing quality to bring to conversations with the council, landlords and accreditation schemes.
A visible benefit for your students
A free tool your university can offer every student who rents privately, working alongside your existing housing advice rather than replacing it.
Redland housing league table
| Redland ranking▴ |
Property▾ | Bedrooms▾ | Overall rating▾ | Rent per person▾ | Would tenants recommend it?▾ |
|---|
What happened in the pilot
What the students who paid to use it told us · Read the full pilot write-up
How we keep reviews fair
- Reviewers confirmed they lived at the property, and most reviews were collected in person, door to door.
- Every review shown here was published with the tenant's consent.
- Reviews are anonymised: no tenant names, and no house numbers.
- Tenants rate the same set of questions, so properties are compared like for like.
Who's behind it
Guarenteed is a side project. We're building it in our spare time to see whether we can make renting better for students. Two of us are former University of Bristol students.
Oli Richardson
Co-founder
Former University of Bristol student, using his product management and consulting experience to improve the student renting experience.
Matthew Segal
Co-founder
Former University of Bristol student, now Head of Politics at a London secondary school.
Oz Kilim
Lead engineer
Physics PhD and machine learning engineer, using machine learning and engineering to solve tough problems in disruptive ways.
Get in touch: [email protected]
About this data
- Street names are real. House numbers and reviewer names have been removed. Each house gets a letter instead (House A, House B…), assigned by ranking, so the letter doesn't reveal the house number. Where a property has more than one review, its rating and rent are the average of those reviews.
- Rent is per person, per month, based on prices at the time of the pilot.
- Written comments appear exactly as tenants gave them, so not every review has detailed comments.