NEW ORLEANS, LA - Student housing may once have been considered the kid brother to the apartment industry, but growing investment clout and operational sophistication has moved the sector out of the shadows. However, as student housing owners and managers have continued to fine tune their strategies and operational tactics to better position themselves for success, very little data has existed to help them benchmark their performance.
Financial analysis of traditional apartment communities provides little insight, as key operational differences between student housing and traditional apartments have significant income statement and cash flow implications. For example, student housing firms often lease by the bed rather than by the unit and typically have higher overhead costs because their properties have a higher level of amenities.
To help fill that void, the National Multi Housing Council (NMHC) and the National Student Housing Council (NSHC) will release the fourth annual NMHC/NSHC Student Housing Income & Expense Benchmarking Survey at the 2013 NMHC Student Housing Conference & Exposition, being held Sept. 30-Oct. 2 at the Sheraton in New Orleans.
The report, an exclusive benefit to conference attendees, includes detailed financial line-item data from 462 student housing properties with 258,703 beds in 37 states. Because of the uniqueness of the data, the report is used extensively by student housing lenders, investors, owners and managers to measure both projected and actual results and provide necessary financial guideposts for today’s student housing market.
“We start with the detailed financial statements that student housing firms send to us and extract all of the meaningful data. We follow up with phone calls where necessary. As a result, we are able to present the data in terms of by-the-unit and by-the-bed, as well as break out by property age, size and type,” says NMHC Vice President of Student Housing Jim Arbury.
This year’s report will have the most extensive data to-date, including income information on gross potential rent, gain/(loss) to lease, concessions, vacancies and net rental income. In addition, the report will provide supplemental information on late fees. All information is shown as dollars-per-bed and also as a percent of net rental income. The numbers also are presented in percentiles to show the range of variation in each line item.
Expenses are shown in a similar format and cover total operating expenses; compensation; management fees; marketing; cable and Internet for residents; utilities; maintenance and repairs; turnover; taxes; insurance and general and administrative. Supplemental data will also show the cost of security and grounds/landscaping.
The national data will be further subdivided by geographic region of the country and also 18 individual states.
Attendees of NMHC’s 11th annual Student Housing Conference & Exposition will receive a complimentary copy of this year’s report; after that, the report may be purchased for $1,500. For full conference details and registration information, click here.