Student Housing Rent Growth Outperforms Conventional Apartment Market

For the first time on record, student housing rent growth is outpacing the price increases in conventional apartment stock. Student housing tends to have a lagged relationship to conventional multifamily housing, as the past two economic slowdowns have proved. The full history of student housing data doesn’t stretch back as far as that of conventional data. Still, in looking at the recent past, student housing rents are now growing faster than conventional apartment rents for the first time on record (except for a brief period in mid-2020 during the pandemic onset). Looking at the past two downcycles – early 2020 and late 2022 – upswing and downswing periods tend to have an inverse relationship in conventional and student housing performance. As of February, student housing rents were growing at 8.4% annually, while conventional rents were growing at 4.5%.