Singapore, China among top investors in US student housing market
- US student housing segment popular among sovereign and pension funds, says analyst
- According to Euromonitor International, foreign students in US universities grew by nearly half to 918,000 in the decade between 2008 and 2018
The growing number of overseas students heading for colleges and universities in the US is being matched by a rise in foreign investments in students’ accommodation.
Singapore was the top source of investment in student housing in the US, putting in US$5 billion between 2016 and 2018, data from New York-based Real Capital Analytics showed.
The rest of the field was a long way behind, with Germany in second with US$373.1 million of investment, Bahrain third with US$342.1 million and France fourth with US$201 million.
Mainland China and Hong Kong were the fifth largest source, investing a combined US$143.1 million.
As of the second week of March, student housing had received US$196.5 million in investments in 2019, led by US$93.1 million from the Netherlands and US$55.1 million from mainland China.
“What’s really gotten popular is student housing,” said Dan Flanigan, who heads the real estate services department at the US law firm Polsinelli. “Over the last 10 to 15 years, the quality and the perceived desire for higher quality student housing has really taken off.”