NAA Conference Dissects Student Housing Sector

[IMGCAP(1)]DALLAS-The National Apartment Association’s first student housing conference has attracted more than 700 professionals and 94 exhibitors from the day-to-day trenches to dissect a niche sector that’s steadily gaining ground as an investment class. With IRR as the bottom line, the idea exchange is a mix of bricks-and-mortar talk and the psychology of dealing with the Millennial generation.

“It’s the fastest growing niche market in housing,” says Douglas Culkin, president of the Arlington, VA-based NAA. “And, we’re looking to grow it in the future.” Not only is the Dallas assembly the largest student housing conference ever held, but he points out that it’s the first one aimed at the operations end.

The conference, being held at the Fairmont Hotel at 1717 N. Akard St. in the CBD, ends this afternoon. Conference-goers from all over the US are putting the industry under the microscope, whether it’s marketing or building the New Millennium version of dormitory life so that parents and students alike are drawn to their products, which are for the most part off-campus developments.