Student housing as a captive market and massive asset class in real estate

Oliver Swan, Managing Partner of Treesdale Real Estate Partners (a real estate investment platform focused on the acquisition of student housing properties nationwide), joins Thomas Kutzman and Scott Pollack in the MouthMedia Network studios powered by Sennheiser. Presented by Prevu.

The opportunity, maintenance challenges, service platform

What is student housing, is it dorms? The surprising quality and variety of students housing, and why this asset class? Marketing properties, the application process, how students discover properties, the focus on amenities, then price and location, starting with signing leases in fall, aligning with academic year, how it is a captive market, how students don’t have proper expectations so need to instill and manage those expectations. The current generation interacts differently, they don’t use the telephone to call for service Crazy requests from tenants such as one involving 25 tons of sand. Having to out technology in place to meet needs of tenants, and whether paying attention to social media is useful for responding to service, the opportunity for big data from service needs and responses, and a 100% engagement rate of platform for services. How the service platform is like a concierge out of necessity vs. luxury, for maintenance requests, and how real estate has lagged on technology front.

Technology complexity, navigating and strategizing demographic trends, and how universities prioritize housing

The complexity and expense of providing Wi-Fi to every resident as a challenge, especially when offering beefy enterprise-grade equipment and infrastructure, how landlords will need to react to the future tenants of this generation, hurdles to get big companies to partner in providing Wi-Fi, the bureaucracy in the way of partnering with municipalities to drive infrastructure innovation in major markets, how markets are opportunity-based, the strong demographics, focusing on the acquisition of existing products and operating them more efficiently or repositioning them for better value/monetization. How regional differences in demographic have impact on operating properties. Looking at university enrollment over time and their plans, along with statewide demographics and economy, plus factors leading to family creation and trends across education paths. And why providing housing is seen as an ancillary priority for universities.

Good timing, a room divided, and the concentration required for racing cars.

How Swan got his start with some good timing in this new growing space with Campus Habitats. And how his job is being a generalist and being able to do a lot of different tasks. Swan’s freshman year dorm room as the seeds of a desire to fix things in student housing, a roommate random coincidence who played a combination of Fish and Rent, too many towels, and a room divided. Being clean but messy, total concentration of taking a car onto a racetrack, and geography leads to a goal in Botswana.

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