Using Revenue Management on Student Housing is the Proven Formula for Success

By Janine Steiner Jovanovic | Mar 22, 2012

To determine which apartment features, community amenities and resident programs are most preferred by both students living in student housing communities as well as parents whose students reside in campus housing, the National Apartment Association (NAA) and J Turner Research completed a survey gauging both parent and resident sentiments. The results were presented at a general session March 1 at the 2012 NAA Student Housing Conference and Exposition in Las Vegas.

(Complete survey details here)

While the survey examined the impact of consumer needs and preferences regarding student housing marketing, community and unit design, amenities, student finances, depth of social media networking and mobile phone usage patterns, I was naturally most interested in the section focusing on rental rates and pricing.

Pricing is More Important to Students than Parents

According to the survey, both parents and students are most interested in getting information about rental rates when visiting an apartment community website. Forty-eight percent of parents and a full 57 percent of students say rental rates are the primary information they are looking for from community websites, with actual photos of property, unit, and common areas placing a distant second.

Furthermore, when actually selecting an apartment, students remained focused on price as the most important factor influencing their decision— 47 percent of students cited rental rates and price as their top determinant. For parents, security was the number one influencing factor with rental rates and pricing ranking only third.

Pricing Needs to be Important to the Student Housing Industry

The amount of importance students put on rental rates, while somewhat surprising, should signal to student housing owners and operators that they can no longer price student properties using conventional or more “static” methods. When student housing communities use YieldStar, beds are always optimally priced based on the owner’s objectives, internal supply and demand characteristics, and market conditions.

With YieldStar, student properties can guarantee a rate as “the best price today,” while adding a sense of security by providing them printed quotes. This locks in the rate even if the price on that room increases due to demand. Students are also given a sense of urgency, knowing that the quoted price is only for a limited time. It encourages faster leasing decisions at a better price, which in turn helps you reach your occupancy goals more quickly and at the highest possible rents.

YieldStar for Student Housing is the Proven Formula for Success

When students are more concerned about rental rates than their parents, it’s either a sign of the apocalypse or a sign that you should seriously consider revenue management.

YieldStar is the only revenue management solution in the market to address the unique needs and characteristics of student housing. YieldStar accounts for the timing of demand and perpetual lease up of student housing, the highly competitive nature of the markets, and, most importantly, the ideal relationship between price and leasing velocity in order to maximize revenues.

For the past four years, we’ve brought the technology and discipline of revenue management to the student housing market with exceptional results, adding significant value to student housing properties and their investors.

Learn how two leading student housing organizations, Ambling and Campus Advantage, are using YieldStar on their properties to achieve their occupancy goals at the highest possible rents by downloading a copy of “YieldStar Revenue Management for Student Housing: The Proven Formula for Success.”

Are you using revenue management to optimize pricing on your student housing properties? Let me know in the comments below.