Case highlights severe financial strain on sector across UK as string of university housing schemes fail.
Students in the city have been forced to find alternative housing and rapidly move their possessions as term begins this month after the collapse of the owner of Marketgait Apartments, a city centre block.
The company filed for administration in mid-July with 68 rooms let.
Accommodation providers are grappling with falling international student numbers, down for a third year; a cost of living squeeze; and higher borrowing and build costs, exacerbated by the Iran war, affecting upgrades at older properties.
A boom in new-build student housing in recent years led to too many tower blocks in places such as Coventry, Leeds and Nottingham.
Three weeks before the then owners filed for administration, Marketgait Apartments in Dundee was still being promoted to students.
The 116-room building, less than 10-minute walk from Abertay and Dundee universities, had a concierge and a shared lounge with a pool table.
The operator, Prestige Student Living, wrote on Facebook on 23 June.
On 15 July, however, partners from FRP Advisory were appointed to the Jersey-based special purpose vehicle that owns the redbrick block after its owners, the real estate manager 90 North and Kuwaiti investment company Rasameel, failed to repay a £5.7m loan against the property.
James Elliot, 21, who recently graduated from Dundee university, said he knew people living in Margetgait who had to move out and were “anxious, stressed and shocked”.
Prestige said the lets in place when Marketgait went into administration included 27 students who had renewed their contracts for the 2026-27 academic year.