NaijaTalkTalk- Meet Studacom.ng, Delta-based start-up simplifying access to student accommodation

Studacom

Call it an online real estate platform, and you will be right. Although it neither lists houses nor parcels of land for sale, Studacom provides indispensable real estate services for Nigerian universities and polytechnics. Coined from two words – Student and Accommodation – Studacom.ng focuses specifically on students’ off-campus accommodation, providing the critical information about available off-campus accommodation for students affected by dearth of on-campus accommodation, thereby saving students the valuable time and energy that would have been dissipated searching for a place to live.

Launched in August, 2016, in Ozoro, Delta State, Studacom has listed over 60 hostels spread across Delta State Polytechnic, Ozoro; Delta State University, Abraka; University of Benin and Federal University of Petroleum Resources, Effurum, effectively meeting the accommodation needs of students in these tertiary institutions across the two States of Edo and Delta.
Studacom also has a vital feature that connects students who have already secured accommodation and are looking for roommates.

“Studacom.ng is a hyper-local online off-campus student accommodation booking and roommate finding platform. We are the go to guys that connect students with safe and affordable accommodations off-campus across several Nigerian schools,” said Joel Amawhe, 21 years old CEO/Founder of Studacom.ng.

He explained that, unlike the regular online real estate platforms who are merely aggregators and relies on subscription, Studacom has adopted commission based model, charging only 5 per cent on total cost of successfully completed transactions; a model, Amawhe said property owners finds more attractive, as Studacom only makes money when the property owners do. Studacom also makes money when students use its premium roommate finding service.

This solution, Amawhe said, was inspired by the need to simplify the search process for off-campus hostels and reduce the stress students pass through looking for where to live.

According to him, “Millions of students are admitted each year but only a few stay on campus due to poor state of on-campus hostels and lack of hostels to accommodate all students, leaving the rest to hunt for expensive off-campus hostels. Often times, students are compelled to trek long distances to areas they may not have been to in their quest to find hostels. Hostel owners on the other hand also find it difficult to access the potential student tenants. Studacom.ng integrates the whole long process of searching, contacting owners, booking hostels and roommates into one safe and secure, easy-to-use and hassle-free platform.”

Although the platform has shown tremendous prospect within the short time it has operated, challenges remain. Like everything new and online related, scepticism abounds both from the hostel owners and the students, including cost of marketing.

More so, Studacom wants to expand to all the tertiary institutions across Nigeria and Africa but needs at least N30 million seed funding, which it hopes to raise within the coming year.