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

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The new construction comes in additiohn to several others completee inrecent years, including the 203-unit University Villag e on Walker Avenue, the 86-unit Fulton Place at the cornerr of West Lee and Fulton street, and the addition of 120 unitxs in Sebastian Village on East Washington Street. Althouggh no one keeps tracmk of the exact number of apartments aimedat students, the additioh of several hundred in a few shortr years clearly represents a significant growth in inventory in and aroundx local campuses. Many developers have been attracted to the relativelhy steady income of student and have been enticed to build becausr ofgrowing enrollments.
UNCG, for example, has grown its student populatiobn 16.6 percent in five years, to 16,703 as of fall 2008. N.C. A&T has grown almost 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’ll hit full “It used to be the everything was in their they could dictate the rules of the game,” said real estatr broker Ralph Jones, who is one of the developers of the upcoming Spartan Crossing, at Sherwood and Granite streets, near Soutyh Chapman Street. Now?
“It’s a student’s Seth Coker, a partner in in Greensboro, said that in past yeara his student apartment complexes woulx have been mostly leased for the upcomingf school year bylate spring, as studentzs made sure to secure a placde as soon as they returned from spring break. He started to see signs of a changwlast spring, when he was leasing for the 2008-0o9 year. “We’re about 95 percent (occupied) for this schoo year, which is really good, but it was a hard fightf to get there, and we got there by he said.
Landlords such as Coker and Bryoh Nelson, executive vice president of in Greensboro, said many of theie properties are about 40 percent to 70 percent leased for the upcomingbschool year, far behind what it was a few yearz ago. Elsewhere in the in areas surroundingand , apartment managers say theid communities are mostly on target to leaswe all of their available beds, and there have been few, if any, rent Property owners say there simply hasn’t been as much competition in thoss areas, compared to Greensboro, and they’ve seen little effect from the economy on students.
Greensborok apartment owners and property managers say they noticef the abundance of housing choices creating problemslast year. Both UNCG and A&Tf house about one-third of students on campus, between the two, often leaves more than 15,000p students needing an off-campus option. But the problemn has gotten worsethis year, as the econom has some students delaying decisions, lookinyg for cheaper alternatives or possiblyu commuting from home to save As a result, student-housing landlords have been flirtingt with concessions. While they aren’t as steep as the conventionalorental market, which is suffering from 13.1 percent there is evidence of deals.
Already manageres or developerssay they’ve upgraded Internet connections and addec flat-panel televisions to lure college students to their communities. But more expensive concessions mighf soon be onthe way, in the form of rent Coker said he’s already knocked $25 per montn off of rent at some properties. And new projects such as Sprintg Place, at the site of the old PomonaaCotton Mill, add to that pressuree by offering deals such as one month’x free rent.
Nelson, Joneds and Randy Dixon, owner of The Edge in Greensboro, say they’ver managed to avoid rent cutsso far, but there’ s a good chance bigger and better dealsx will start appearing later this summer if thingas don’t improve. “I hate concessions as much as everyone but I like 100 percentfull better,” Jones In the short term, developers say that becaus e of an abundance of supply, and the fact that it’sx hard to find financing, it’ws unlikely there will be much more which will help the market level out. And long owners say they don’t think the Greensboro marketis over-saturated.
UNCG and A&r continue to anticipate enrollmentgrowtyh — UNCG says it alreadh has 300 more applications for housinbg than it can accept — leaving a bigger potentiaol market, especially when the economy “We’re still in good shape,” Jones “I just think lease-up will come