CHICAGO—It's that time of year again. Students are headed back to class, and as they stream back into the nation's university towns, investors inevitably start to think about all that well-leased campus housing. Triad Real Estate Partners has become an important player in this rising sector, especially in the Midwest, and in addition to handling the recent sale of two regional student housing assets, the Chicago-based company has been retained to sell another two class A properties at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN.

“We're seeing new investors enter the space every day so the investment market continues to flourish,” Triad's Ryan Tobias tells GlobeSt.com. “The vast majority of properties tend to hit the market after Labor Day. Classes will have started nationwide and investors and owners will be back from vacations.”

The first asset sold by Triad was University Mills, a 481-bed property located within walking distance of the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, IA. A MN-based private investor group that wants to expand its student housing portfolio into IA paid $16.4 million to the seller, one of the largest owners in the student housing space, who wanted to exit the market. Originally built in 2001, University Mills has received significant capital improvement to its amenity package.