2021 Student Housing Market Overview and 2022 Outlook - Flipbook - Page 16
VALE EAST
Orlando, FL
Introduction
The student housing industry continues to display its resiliency during periods
of economic uncertainty and large institutional investors have taken notice.
With the release of vaccines and a vibrant U.S. economy, student housing was
well-positioned for sustained success for Fall 2021. Major universities across
the country reported strong enrollment growth as students were welcomed
back to their well-favored in-person classroom environment. Unsurprisingly,
the level of uncertainty that the pandemic triggered throughout the student
housing sector continued to negatively affect the early phases of the Fall 2021
pre-leasing season. Fall 2021 pre-lease activity was significantly lower in the
early months of January and February compared to prior years. The lag in
pre-leasing resulted in increased concessions and relatively flat rent growth,
nationally, for the early part of the 2021-2022 AY lease cycle. However, as the
first wave of universities announced full-time in-person classes for the Fall of
2021, pre-leasing began to accelerate with strong activity in July and August,
resulting in a 94.2 percent in-place occupancy rate for Fall 2021. Importantly,
this marked a 160 basis-point increase in Fall occupancy compared to prepandemic levels in 2019. The spike in demand for housing in the late months
of the 2021-2022 AY pre-leasing cycle, as well as total new supply being at
the lowest level in nearly a decade, allowed for meaningful rate growth and
substantially increased transactional activity. Over the next several sections,
the institutionalization of the student housing sector and its resilience to the
pandemic headwinds will be covered in greater detail.
2 0 2 1 S T U D E N T H O U S I N G M A R K E T O V E R V I E W A N D 2 0 2 2 O UT L O O K
NEWMARK
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