Using Business Intelligence Software for Student Housing

Talk to any student housing operator and they’ll acknowledge a “rush” of a different kind on college campuses each year. Move-in day and the weeks leading up to it are intense as leasing agents try to fill beds, Resident Life is making roommate assignments and parents are calling to ask one more time what their kid can or cannot bring. In the meantime, operators constantly check progress against any historical data they may have cobbled together to see if beds are filling at the rate they did for the same period (usually a week) last year and years before. It can be more action-packed than a special appearance by Pitt Bull on Fraternity Row. “One of the analysis that student operators often perform is comparing where they are at in the leasing cycle this week versus the same week last year and other historical periods,” says RealPage Industry Principal Andrew Bowen. It can be burdensome on analysts and often requires a great deal of manual effort to put the data together. They are constantly comparing current performance to historical.” As they are doing it, the clock is ticking. Unlike in multifamily circles, the majority of the building’s residents are moving in all at once. In some cases, performing every move-in on a single day. Bowen, along with RealPage student data expert Taylor Gunn, will lead a panel at the National Apartment Association’s Campus Connex student housing conference on leveraging data to improve performance Feb. 13-14 in Orlando. Helping operators quickly compare past, present leasing performance Bowen says the dynamics of student leasing have come a long way since he signed on as a resident assistant while in college 26 years ago. Since then, a wealth of data is available to help student housing operators better manage the leasing and revenue management cycles. Similar business intelligence tactics adopted on the multifamily side have proven beneficial in leasing student beds across the...