Student housing rents, inventory rise

The U.S. student housing market had its seventh consecutive year of annual rent growth in 2016, and inventory has increased by 56.3 percent over the past 10 years, according to a Kroll Bond Rating Agency report summarizing current trends in the student housing industry.

During the past decade, occupancy only decreased in three years and was up a modest 0.6 percent in 2016. KBRA expects the student housing sector to continue to experience positive trends in 2017. The sheer amount of new product, however, has prompted KBRA to question the resilience of the market in the coming years, especially because national university enrollment growth is projected by the National Center for Education Statistics to decline after this year. Some markets already have been negatively impacted by new inventory and declining local university enrollment, which leaves the question open as to whether student housing performance is in for a long recess.

According to American Campus C