New Market Analytics Solution Delivers Critical Data for Student Housing Investors

The student housing arena presents special challenges to investors. Unlike with conventional housing, the data you need to make decisions about building, buying, selling, holding or upgrading assets is often contained in various silos that are hard to access and consolidate.

This includes data about changing submarket economies and rents, student body sizes, enrollment trends, typical rent budgets and expectations, and competing properties with their respective amenities, concessions, strengths and weaknesses. Along with practical information such as proximity to campus, current occupancy by floorplan and bed, seasonal turn and other student-specific details.  

Now, RealPage – the premier source of multifamily market data – has introduced a market analytics solution specifically for the student housing industry. RealPage Market Analytics Student Housing is packed with the kind of data that drives more profitable decision making for every stage of the investment cycle, presented clearly and comprehensibly. So you have a wealth of actionable information at your fingertips, without having to wrangle the data and make sense of it yourself.

The facts that matter

RealPage Market Analytics Student Housing comprises the most comprehensive and granular student housing data available. Data is presented all the way from the national level to the room level, including every level of detail in between. And it goes all the way back to 2013.

In other words, the data is both broad and deep. That’s critical, because clients might be considering anything from a region in which to build new housing to a super-local decision about whether to upgrade a particular property in order to achieve a rent premium.

The data includes:

• KPIs from around 1,000 universities, including enrollment, housing and tuition trends
• Area property occupancy, rents, rent trends and velocity
• Amenities and concessions
• Rent and occupancy by floor plan and bed
• Student property construction start and end dates

The image of opportunity

Spreadsheets only go so far in illuminating opportunities. Particularly if you or your people are sinking valuable hours into populating and creating them for analysis, leaving less time for the actual thinking that results in making savvy decisions.

RealPage’s solution not only saves you from collecting the data you need, but also presents it in eye-opening charts and graphs that telegraph meaning far more effectively than rows and columns of numbers. A customizable dashboard lets you put the information you need most right at your fingertips.

The student housing analytics software also enables econometric modeling and forecasting for around 200 universities and colleges, including radius forecasting.

Collaboration made easy

Many users of the solution will be not only performing their own analyses, but also preparing or sharing information with other stakeholders.

RealPage Market Analytics lets you quickly execute customized data extracts using filters to strain out exactly the information people need to see, and easily assemble it into a professional-looking report.

“Most investment decisions are going to involve multiple stakeholders,” says Scott Herring, Vice President of Market Analytics. “This solution streamlines collaborative analysis in a number of ways. It pulls together the information everyone needs to see, customized for their particular roles and areas of interest. And it makes it easy to clearly present this information, in an intuitive and visually attractive manner that’s a big advance from the pages of numbers we had to deal with in the past.”

Student Housing Insights from the experts

RealPage Market Analytics Student housing is supported by industry-leading economists. They not only advise in the ongoing development of the solution itself, but also share their wisdom with its users.

Available to clients are an array of reports, publications and commentaries, providing an outside perspective that complements internal insights derived through applying the data and modeling.

“It’s critical for people to understand that this isn’t just a bunch of data coupled with reporting capabilities,” says Scott Herring. “Integral to this solution are the experts who have informed the product’s development and continue to contribute their perspectives. RealPage has become the clear leader in multifamily market research and engages the most knowledgeable in the business both on-staff and in a consulting capacity.”

If you invest in the student market, learn more about this exciting new decision support tool. You might want to start with this informative student housing webcast.