Government Contracting and Student Housing

Abstract

The majority of this paper concerns the attractiveness of the student housing sector of Real Estate. Many firms in the current economy are forced to look in new directions and student housing may just be a 'niche' market that still performs well. And because of various projected demographic trends, it could be a lone bright spot in an otherwise bottomed-out industry. Over the past summer I interned with a company that is now very interested in gaining a piece of the student housing pie. They are involved in numerous industries (Security, A&E, Environmental, etc.) but have the most experience historically in real estate. They observed firsthand a property that was thriving just because of simple dynamic shifts. In addition, these dynamics: importance of education, population growth, etc. are only to become more favorable in the future, which bodes well for Real Estate Development companies that tend to think in the long-term rather than short. Now, I'm not claiming student housing is completely recession-proof, but I do expect it to be highly resistant to the general performance of our domestic economy -and more specifically to the Real Estate industry whose problems are very well documented. The first section of this paper describes my internship from a literal standpoint, while the second is where student housing is looked at in depth.