Students are heading back to school across the nation and leasing student housing at a faster clip than they were last year.
For investors, that creates new opportunities, but one leader in the field cautions that the differences in market fundamentals are widening across universities and regional markets. Some types of universities are seeing much higher occupancies and lagging construction, while others are overbuilt with falling demand.
On a national level, pre-leasing across the Yardi 200—a curated set of the most important student housing markets, representing 90% of the institutional space—reached 89.1% in July ahead of fall move-ins. That is up from 88.1% in July 2025 but still below August 2025 levels of 89.9%.
