The RealShare Student Housing Conference is produced by ALM's Real Estate Media Group. Nearly 400 people attended the event at the Four Seasons Resort and Club in suburban Dallas to hear industry experts discuss student housing trends.

"We started off last year very, very nervous, but we started off this year more relaxed," says Donna Preiss, CEO of The Preiss Co. "April pre-leasing has been very strong for us, and we're trying not to back down on rents."

Preiss participated in the event's Town Hall Meeting, which was moderated by Peter Katz, senior vice president of investments for Marcus & Millichap. Other panelists include: Daniel Bernstein, senior vice president and CIO of Campus Apartments Inc.; Brian Dinerstein, principal of The Dinerstein Cos.; and Michael Zaransky, co-CEO of Prime Property Investors Ltd.

Preiss recently completed a first quarter analysis and got a jolt. "Since we've concentrated on cutting expenses, they've come down, and for our first quarter 2010 we averaged NOI that was 20 percent higher than 2009," she says. "That was shocking to us."

Dinerstein says his firm has experienced similar improvement. "Our pre-leasing is up 10 percent, and in terms of NOI, we're doing much better," he notes. "We've been challenging property taxes and insurance, which has created compression in expenses."

However, Dinerstein says he lacks the conviction and courage to push rents. "We should be pushing rents… we should be up 3 to 4 percent, but we just want to get full," he admits.

In contrast, Bernstein's firm is focusing on improving occupancy and rent growth. "We're seeing some rent growth – 2 percent at this point – so we still have a ways to go," he says. "We are in better position than last year when we were over 96 percent occupied. We're tracking to do better than that."

For his part, Zaranksy notes "surprisingly good" velocity in the six markets in which he operates. Even more importantly, his firm hasn't had to offer any major concessions to encourage pre-leasing.

Overall, the panelists agree they are far more optimistic today than they were 12 months ago. The source of that optimism can be summed up very easily: "Demand for student housing is at an all-time high," Preiss explains.