Crowded housing: Rent cuts and other concessions likely as landlords struggle to fill student housing – The Business Journal of the Greater Triad Area:

The new construction comes in addition to several otherxs completed in recent includingthe 203-unit University Village on Walkert Avenue, the 86-unit Fulton Place at the cornet of West Lee and Fultoh street, and the addition of 120 unite in Sebastian Village on East Washingtonh Street. Although no one keeps tracko of the exact number of apartmentxs aimedat students, the additioj of several hundred in a few shorr years clearly represents a significant growth in inventory in and arounr local campuses. Many developers have been attracted to the relativelyh steady income ofstudent housing, and have been enticed to builf because of growing enrollments.
for example, has grown its student populatiob 16.6 percent in five to 16,703 as of fall 2008. N.C. A&T has grown almosty 14 percent in thatsame period, to But by adding so many units in so short a they’re taking longer to sign leaving many landlords wondering how long until, or if, they’lpl hit full occupancy. “It used to be the everything was intheir hands, they coulx dictate the rules of the game,” said real estatew broker Ralph Jones, who is one of the developerz of the upcoming Spartan Crossing, at Sherwood and Granite near South Chapman Street. Now?
“It’s a student’s Seth Coker, a partner in in Greensboro, said that in past yearsw his student apartment complexes would have been mostly leasex for the upcoming school year bylate spring, as studentse made sure to secure a place as soon as they returned from spring break. He started to see signs of a changselast spring, when he was leasing for the 2008-09 year. “We’re about 95 percent (occupied) for this schoopl year, which is really but it was a hard fightg toget there, and we got there by November,” he Landlords such as Coker and Bryon Nelson, executivr vice president of in said many of their properties are about 40 percentr to 70 percent leased for the upcoming school year, far behind what it was a few yearss ago.
Elsewhere in the Triad, in areas surroundinh and , apartment managers say their communitiezs are mostly on target to leasew all of their available and there havebeen few, if any, rent Property owners say there simply hasn’t been as much competitionh in those areas, compared to Greensboro, and they’ve seen little effect from the economy on Greensboro apartment owners and property managers say they noticerd the abundance of housing choices creating problemse last year. Both UNCG and A&T houses about one-third of students on which, between the two, oftenb leaves more than 15,000 studentse needing an off-campus option.
But the problem has gotten worse this as the economy has some students delaying looking for cheaper alternatives or possibly commuting from home to save Asa result, student-housing landlords have been flirtinfg with concessions. While they aren’t as steepp as the conventionalrental market, which is suffering from 13.1 percent vacancy, therd is evidence of deals. Alreadyy managers or developerssay they’v upgraded Internet connections and added flat-panel televisions to lure college students to their But more expensive concessions mightr soon be on the way, in the form of rent Coker said he’s already knocke $25 per month off of rent at some properties.
And new projectsx such as Spring Place, at the site of the old PomonaCottonb Mill, add to that pressure by offering deals such as one month’sw free rent. Nelson, Jones and Randy Dixon, owner of The Edge in say they’ve managed to avoid rent cuts so far, but there’as a good chance bigger and bettedr deals will start appearingt later this summer ifthingsw don’t improve. “I hate concessions as much as everyon else, but I like 100 percent full Jones said. In the short term, developersw say that because of an abundanceof supply, and the fact that it’ss hard to find it’s unlikely there will be much more which will help the market level out.
And long term, ownere say they don’t think the Greensborio marketis over-saturated. UNCG and A&T continue to anticipats enrollmentgrowth — UNCG says it alreadyt has 300 more applications for housing than it can accept — leaving a bigger potential market, especially when the economy turns. “We’rs still in good shape,” Jones “I just think lease-up will come
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