RIET - Student Housing REITs: It's Not Goodbye It's See You Later

• Student housing has seen a swift recovery and brightening outlook over the past twelve months as the effects of soaring rents have more-than-offset ongoing COVID issues and longer-term enrollment headwinds.
• American Campus - the first of three student housing REITs and last one still publicly traded- was scooped-up last month by Blackstone - one of its five major REIT acquisitions since June.
• Given the abundance of private institutional capital targeting student housing assets and prior acquisitions of EDR and Campus Crest, in January, we projected a potential takeout of ACC at $65/share.
• Blackstone's $12.8 billion takeout at $65.47/share bid - nearly spot-on with that call - is a healthy 14% premium to ACC's prior close. These massive acquisitions have become necessary to feed its fledging non-traded REIT business, BREIT.
• BREIT has grown into a $100B behemoth in less than five years despite its high fee structure, capitalizing on investor interest for private real estate, and a questionable perception of lower volatility compared to public REITs.

For further details see: