It makes sense Asset Plus SVP Ryan McGrath looks like he could be in college. His company is one of the nation's top five privately-owned providers of student housing. In the past few years, he tells us, there’s been an expansion of the field as investors moved to a sector they saw as recession-proof. (He says it’s not, but it is resilient.) Unfortunately, enrollment may have increased as predicted, but not in the colleges investors thought, and there hasn’t been a big increase in demand for privately run student housing. Asset Plus has over 50 student housing properties in 19 states totaling 30k beds. It builds off-campus facilities when universities balk at amenities like huge pools.

Voila, a huge pool. In this case, at the Lofts at Wolf Pen Creek, a student housing development at Texas A&M. It was completed last year, and even though people were nervous about the timing, it’s 90% occupied at above market rates. It’s also already 53% preleased for next year. (The market average is 25%.) Asset Plus created a separate student housing arm, Asset Campus Housing, in ’98, which Ryan says has really taken off. Asset Plus is growing, too. Two years ago it had 432 employees; now it has over 1500. Ryan tells us he went hunting with some real estate buddies last weekend and Bisnow was a point of discussion. Glad we could come along!

Source: Real Estate BisNow