RealPage: Apartment Markets in College Towns Remain Steady

(Image courtesy of RealPage; Breakout image courtesy of Stanley Morales/pexels.com)

RealPage Analytics, Richardson, Texas, found in a recent analysis that college town apartment markets tend to remain steadier than the national norm, and experience higher apartment occupancy rates.

As of Q4 2023, occupancy in college towns ran 150 basis points above the national norm, on a weighted average basis.

That’s a notable change from pre-pandemic, when the college town average occupancy was 60 basis points above the national numbers.

RealPage analyzed 25 towns containing a major college and with a population of less than 1 million residents–such as Blacksburg, Va., (home of Virginia Tech), Gainesville, Fla., (home of the University of Florida) and South Bend, Ind., (home of the University of Notre Dame.)

RealPage noted that some of those demand and occupancy dynamics may come from less supply pressure in college towns; across the 25 towns analyzed, the units under construction inventory ratio averaged about 2.9% over the past five years, compared with 4.5% nationwide.

That gap has widened recently amid significant jumps in building–as of Q4 2023, college towns had an average of 2.8% of units under construction, which compared with 5% nationally.