Purpose-built student accommodation remains a safe and resilient asset class with plenty of growth upside in Central Europe

Rainer Nonnengässer, executive chairman at International Campus Group, says that purpose-built student accommodation remains a safe and resilient asset class with plenty of growth upside in Central Europe.

Recent months have demonstrated that the student-housing asset class is far more crisis-proof and resilient than many market operators had assumed at the outbreak of the COVID-19 crisis. It became quite clear that young people have not abandoned the idea of studying for a degree while living within their own four walls, away from home. And there is nothing to suggest that degree programmes will be taught fully online in future — after the experiences of the pandemic, students have no appetite for it. The basic PBSA concept — to provide fully equipped apartments for students plus socialising and leisure areas in combination with long-term leases — has arguably proven to be crisis-resistant.

In Germany, for instance, we currently assume that the 2021–2022 wint