Student Housing Rebounding Quickly In a Post-COVID World

After being hard-hit during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the student housing sector continues a relatively quick rebound, with preleasing activity rising at the highest monthly rate since March of last year. 

According to a new analysis by the National Multifamily Housing Council, preleasing among the RealPage 175 increased 9.4 percentage points in March 2021 and another 9.6 percentage points in April and in May, the three biggest monthly increases since March 2020. And among the Yardi 200, preleasing rates were up 7.8 percentage points to 58.6 percent from March numbers in April.

The uptick is mirrored in investment activity in the sector, which has rebounded after it hit the lowest amount registered in a decade ($153.2 million in Q2 2020) in a decade last year. But after a brief respite, “capital began to come off the sidelines,” NMHC’s Chris Bruen writes, with sales volume increasing 156.5% in the third quarter of last year and an eye-popping 1,015.9% in Q4. Deal volume officially reached $4.4 billion in 4Q 2020, a near-record high. 

Deal flow receded a bit in Q1 to $0.9 billion in the first quarter, while cap rates in the sector fell 10 basis points to 5.3%, the second-lowest level on record. 

While fall enrollment decreased 2.5% in 2020, “since enrollment growth has historically been unaffected by economic recessions, we can attribute this drop off in enrollment to the unique circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, which was a true black swan event,” Bruen writes. He also notes that the National Student Clearinghouse recorded positive enrollment growth in 2020 among public four-year institutions (+0.2 percent)— thanks largely to an increase in graduate students—and also among private for-profit four-year institutions (+5.3 percent).