COVID-19: Impact on Student Housing (Webcast Summary)

To support the multifamily community through the current COVID-19 crisis, we’ve launched a series of discussions centered around its impact on the rental housing industry with the latest data, expert insights and actionable measures stakeholders can take to minimize fallout. Register for upcoming webcasts and watch previous episodes on demand at the COVID-19: Resource Center. This is a condensed summary from the webcast, COVID-19: Impact on Student Housing, broadcast on April 9, featuring RealPage® Vice President/Deputy Chief Economist Jay Parsons, Market Analysis Manager Carl Whitaker, Industry Principal Ryan Kimura and Modern Message Co-Founder and CEO John Hinckley, with special guests Jennifer Cassidy, Executive Vice President and COO, Campus Advantage; and Courtney Gordon, Senior Vice President, Operations, RISE.   UPDATE ON STUDENT HOUSING OCCUPANCY & PRE-LEASE VELOCITY* Student Housing tends to be more recession-resilient than other real estate sectors. But the negative impact of COVID-19 is no ordinary downturn, with more than 17.5M unemployed at this point. Nearly all universities have shut down on-campus learning, resulting in a substantial shift in campus-to-campus dynamics with a large segment of college students moving off-campus or returning home. However, most property managers who responded to RealPage industry surveys said their occupancy hadn’t seen much of a shift yet, due in part to quotes reflected for the full lease-term and some move-outs captured as ‘in-place’ at the time of the survey in mid-March (before government administrations started mandating shelter-in-place orders). The results of today’s webcast attendee poll, which asked about expectations for Fall 2020 student housing occupancy, saw a majority of 58.6% respond that they expect modest declines. Just under 20% (19.3%) expect no material change,13.3% expect sharp declines, and 8.8% expect occupancy numbers to plummet. April data will b...