Not Animal House Anymore

Apparently, student housing is all the rage (or, as I prefer to say, rah-jay) when it comes to niche sectors within the multifamily industry. I knew the sector was doing well, but just how well it was doing came as a bit of a surprise to me as I listened to speaker after speaker at the National Multi Housing Council’s 2010 Student Housing Conference and Exposition in Washington, DC last week.

Those of you who follow me on Twitter probably saw my tweets on the sessions held throughout the two-day meeting, which was pretty well attended by developers, investors, operators, capital sources and folks in other segments of the market. One very telling sign of the market’s interest in student housing was in the attendees: one speaker asked audience members to raise their hands if they’re first-time attendees of the conference, and a good amount of people were. Then he asked attendees to raise their hands if they’re not currently involved in student housing, and most of those same hands were raised.