SANTA BARBARA, CALIF. — The student housing industry continued to show strong fundamentals in the first quarter of this year, with preleasing levels off to a robust start and annual rent growth exceeding pre-pandemic levels, according to the latest installment of Yardi’s National Student Housing Report. As of March, preleasing for fall 2022 was reported at 63.8 percent — a number that is 13.5 percent higher than the same time last year and 9.9 percent higher than March 2019 — and the average rent per-bedroom for fall 2022 is $777. These figures are based on the company’s “Yardi 200” markets, which include the top 200 investment-grade universities across all major collegiate conferences, including the Power 5 conferences and Carnegie R1 and R2 universities (research universities in the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education). A handful of university markets were almost fully preleased as of March, with Purdue University (99.9 percent preleased), the University of Pittsburgh (99.8 percent preleased) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison (98.3 percent preleased) topping the list. Few universities are struggling with fall 2022 preleasing so far, but those that are tend to have higher acceptance rates, according to the report. The University of Houston had the …
