Crowded housing: Rent cuts and other concessions likely as landlords struggle to fill student housing - South Florida Business Journal:

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The new construction comes in addition to several otheres completed inrecent years, including the 203-unity University Village on Walker Avenue, the 86-unit Fulto Place at the corner of West Lee and Fultonb street, and the addition of 120 unitsw in Sebastian Village on East Washingtonn Street. Although no one keeps track of the exactt number of apartments aimefdat students, the addition of several hundredr in a few short years clearly represents a significant growtn in inventory in and around local campuses. Many developersw have been attracted to the relatively steady income ofstudent housing, and have been entice d to build because of growingy enrollments.
UNCG, for has grown its student population 16.6 percent in five years, to 16,703 as of fall 2008. N.C. A&T has growhn almost 14 percent in thatsame period, to 10,388. But by addingy so many units in so shorta they’re taking longer to sign leases, leavint many landlords wondering how long until, or if, they’lpl hit full occupancy. “It used to be the everything was intheir hands, they couldc dictate the rules of the game,” said real estatde broker Ralph Jones, who is one of the developersx of the upcoming Spartanj Crossing, at Sherwood and Granite streets, near South Chapma n Street. Now? “It’s a student’x market.
” Seth Coker, a partner in in said that in past years his studenf apartment complexes would have been mostly leased for the upcoming schookl year bylate spring, as studentws made sure to secure a place as soon as they returnedx from spring break. He startef to see signs of a changwelast spring, when he was leasiny for the 2008-09 year. “We’re about 95 percent (occupied) for this school year, which is really good, but it was a hard fighgt to get there, and we got there by November,” he said.
Landlords such as Coker and Bryon Nelson, executive vice president of in said many of their properties are about 40 percentg to 70 percent leased for the upcomingschooo year, far behind what it was a few years ago. Elsewhere in the Triad, in areas surrounding and , apartmenft managers say their communities are mostlyg on target to lease all of theiravailabld beds, and there have been few, if any, rent concessions.
Properth owners say there simply hasn’t been as much competition in those areas, compared to Greensboro, and they’vse seen little effect from the economy on Greensboro apartment owners and property managers say they noticeed the abundance of housing choices creating problemslast year. Both UNCG and A&fT house about one-third of studentxs on campus, which, between the two, oftem leaves more than 15,00o students needing an off-campus But the problem has gotten worse this as the economy has some studentddelaying decisions, looking for cheaper alternatives or possibly commuting from home to save As a result, student-housing landlords have been flirting with concessions.
Whilwe they aren’t as steep as the conventionalkrental market, which is suffering from 13.1 percent there is evidence of deals. Already managerse or developerssay they’ve upgraded Internet connections and added flat-panel televisions to lure college students to theirt communities. But more expensive concessions might soon be onthe way, in the form of rent Coker said he’s already knocked $25 per mont off of rent at some And new projects such as Spring Place, at the site of the old Pomonqa Cotton Mill, add to that pressurse by offering deals such as one month’sw free rent.
Nelson, Jones and Randy Dixon, owner of The Edge in say they’ve managed to avoid rent cuts so far, but there’sa a good chance bigger and better deals will start appearint later this summer ifthings don’tg improve. “I hate concessions as much as everyone else, but I like 100 percent full better,” Jones In the short term, developers say that becauses of an abundance of supply, and the fact that it’ws hard to find financing, it’s unlikely there will be much more which will help the market level out.
And long owners say they don’t think the Greensboro market is UNCGand A&T continue to anticipate enrollment growth UNCG says it already has 300 more applications for housing than it can accept leaving a bigger potential market, especially when the economy “We’re still in good shape,” Jones said. “I just think lease-up will come