The pandemic impact on higher education, with many universities and colleges shifting to remote learning and keeping students from coming to campus, was hard on the student housing market. Now that things are changing as people return to campus, the investment outlook is much improved.

The first three quarters of 2021 saw $4.85 billion in transactions, according to JLL's capital markets group. That compares to $6.25 billion for all of 2020. The company expects the fourth quarter of this year to be extremely busy, as the JLL Capital Markets national student housing team over the last four weeks conducted more than $1.5 billion in broker opinion values for student housing assets.

"With how compressed multi-housing cap rates have become, investors are focusing on yield," said senior director Teddy Leatherman in prepared remarks. "Right now, we are seeing a spread of 80 basis points between student housing and multi-housing cap rates, and we are seeing more multi-housing investors looking to buy into the student housing market. This has made our sector more competitive."