Student Housing Supply Ramps Up to Meet Demand

Post-Covid-19, students have returned to campus in droves and are expected to keep coming, and it’s sweet music to developers of purpose-built student housing, which focus on buildings that are near but off campus. Many are working to keep up and planning ahead that numbers will continue. 

A year from now in Fall 2024, more than 28,000 new student housing beds are projected to be available. Of course, the numbers may change due to financing challenges given high interest rates, overall economic uncertainty including the return of student debt and more. But for now, that number reflects a good indication of the expected supply.

At 11 campuses, more than 1,000 beds will be available within a year, according to RealPage, with big-name state schools among them. At the top of the list is the University of Wisconsin at Madison which expects to gain 2,850 beds. That school has one of the nation’s highest occupancy rates, so the new beds will ease pent-up demand, the report says. But the beds are also more than they’ve had before and represent a 50% inventory increase at the school. What that means, the report says, is that “for every two beds that exist off campus in the market today, one more will work through lease up next year.”

At second place on this list is the University of Texas at Austin with almost 2,500 beds coming next Fall, which follows 2,840 beds delivered this fall. And looking farther ahead, since plans are made in advance another 1,200 beds are projected for Fall 2025. So, in three years, the university has delivered a total of 3,400 beds, representing about half of its total from the 2010s decade.

Florida State in Tallahassee usually makes the list but to date in the 2020s-decade, construction has been less. A few schools like Cincinnati, George Mason and Florida International may stand out as they don’t fit the prototypical top five state flagship university mold but are on the list with 1,881 new beds expected for Cincinnati. The University of George is 11th on the list with 1,068 beds to be delivered. And some universities will only get a handful of beds such as Delaware with only 112 beds and Illinois State with 76 new beds come next Fall.

Nineteen other schools will get between 1,0000 and 500 beds in Fall 2024, and 16 will get up to 500 new beds at that time. University of Washington ranks high for total supply in the 2020s decade though performance has softened lately but it may have rebounded in recent months of this Fall pre-lease season. And out West, three California universities—University of California at Berkeley, Cal State in Northridge and University of California in Los Angeles—need more housing and seek new supply as students return.

What do students want in their housing? High on the list are their own bathroom, closet and other storage. Other wants are large kitchen areas and large living rooms, counter space and wall-to-wall carpeting. And many now want good places to study, alone and in collaboration, as well as be close to campus even if not on campus so they can or bicycle there and will pay more for the proximity.