The new fund that Greystar launched for student housing

We expect to continue to grow it. We'll be focused on adding new assets, both on-campus and off-campus. More acquisitions are a possibility as is development.We're a very large investor in student housing outside of the US and we expect this fund to accelerate our US activities in this space. We're a dominant player in the multifamily sector so this new fund is meant to help bring our student housing business up to scale, similar to our multifamily focus.

Off-campus versus on-campus student housing

A lot of EdR's growth has been from its on-campus development and partnerships with universities. We think that represents a huge opportunity going forward. But there's also the continued need for off-campus, purpose-built student housing and I would expect us to continue that as well.

The partnership with Blackstone

Greystar Student Housing Growth and Income Fund will be focused primarily on on-campus and close-to-campus housing. The deal with Blackstone was an opportunity to take some other really great assets at some great universities and capitalize them differently. They were all off-campus properties and just a little different than the cash-profile of our on-campus and close-to-campus assets.

Student housing's role as a defensive stock

It is certainly something that made this acquisition even more exciting. These are low-leverage strategies so it introduces a safety factor. And the fact that student housing is not as volatile as other commercial real estate asset classes and performs pretty well in a downturn is definitely something that not just us but other capital providers around the globe find compelling.