To ring in the New Year, Student Housing Business — sister publication to REBusinessOnline — sat down with Ryan Lang, executive managing director and head of Newmark Knight Frank’s student housing division, to discuss his outlook for the year ahead. SHB: What challenges will your market face in 2019? Where are the opportunities within these challenges? Lang: It appears volatility on the capital markets side will continue to be closely monitored heading into 2019 and beyond. There remains great opportunity as the student market, as a whole, is fundamentally sound and viewed as a risk averse asset class within the larger investment community. SHB: Which submarkets will surprise people in 2019? Lang: While average occupancy at major Tier I universities continues to be stable near 95 percent, we believe several markets that have been supply constrained over the past few academic year cycles will begin making noticeable recoveries. Of note, we believe Texas Tech (Lubbock), Ole Miss (Oxford), and Michigan State (Lansing) have the potential to outperform investor expectations. SHB: What market shifts are you noticing that others haven’t? What would you whisper to clients and prospects? Lang: Along with newer construction product, there are clearly more opportunistic assets hitting the market and more yield driven …
