"Student Housing, One of the Most Hyped Asset Classes, Runs Out of Students"

Just as every generation thinks that they are the ones who discovered sex, so every real estate cycle produces its can't miss deals and promoters. [no idea who to credit on the sex line, probably some Cro-Magnon parent]
Just a year ago the only thing more talked-about in the R.E. biz was WeWork.
From Wolf Street, May 24: 

Here’s the story of two student housing REITs in the UK that crashed.

Wolf here: In recent years, student housing, a subcategory of Commercial Real Estate, became one of the hottest asset classes in the US, in the UK, and elsewhere. Big money piled in. Wall Street raked in the fees by securitizing the mortgages into commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS). Large firms spun off their portfolios of student housing buildings into publicly traded REITs. The article below is about two of those REITs in the UK, but the issues are the same in the US. This asset class is risky even in good times because students are not stable renters. Last fall, long before Covid-19 showed up, delinquencies and special servicing rates on US student housing CMBS already spiked. The pandemic has now been heaped on top of it.

By Nick Corbishley, for WOLF STREET:
When it comes to over-priced acquisitions at peak hype, there is no worse time than just before a financial crisis. The UK’s largest student housing real estate investment trust (REIT) Unite Group fell into that trap. In November 2019, it spent £1.4 billion to buy up privately-owned student housing provider Liberty Living Group plc, from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. In the process, it more than doubled its net debt, from £856 million to £1.88 billion. The day after the deal was sealed, Unite’s CEO said the enlarged group would “be well positioned to meet the growing need for affordable, high quality student accommodation in university towns and cities where demand is strong.”

That need, instead of growing, has all but vanished. Since March 11, all UK university campuses have been closed due to the virus outbreak. Most students have gone back home.

In late April, Unite Group informed investors that it had been inundated with cancellation requests since offering to waive rents for students who did not plan to occupy their rooms in the final term. Based on requests received up to that point, between 43,000 and 46,000 students would not pay rent this semester, the company said. The total number of vacated beds is the equivalent of 65% of Unite’s portfolio.

As a result, the company said it expected a fall in income from the 2019/20 academic year of 16-20% on a Group share basis, or £125 million, which it said was an improvement on its previous forecasts. But that was before Cambridge University’s bombshell announcement last Thursday that it was cancelling all face-to-face lectures for the entire 2020-2021 academic year, fueling speculation that many students will stay away next year too.

“Given that it is likely that social distancing will continue to be required, the university has decided there will be no face-to-face lectures during the next academic year,” the university said in a statement. “Lectures will continue to be made available online and it may be possible to host smaller teaching groups in person, as long as this conforms to social distancing requirements.”

Given Cambridge University’s import and influence, the move is likely to trigger a cascade of similar announcements from other higher education institutions. If that happens, student life in the UK is set to be a more insular experience for the foreseeable future, dealing a massive blow not only to students, professors, lecturers and other university staff but also to the businesses and communities that have come to depend on the income they generate....

....MUCH MORE

Bringing to mind this bit, last seen in 2014's "George Goodman, aka Adam Smith, Has Died":
....Adam Smith noted it in the 'sixties bull market (The Money Game via Contravest, January 22, 2000):
There is one wonderful chapter where the consummate pragmatic speculator, the Great Winfield, is lamenting his performance problems in a wildly speculative bull market.

“My boy,” said the Great Winfield over the phone. “Our trouble is that we are too old for this market. The best players in this kind of a market have not passed their twenty-ninth birthdays. Come on over and I will show you my solution.

So Adam Smith goes over and finds three new faces in the Great Winfield’s office.

My solution to the current market,” the Great Winfield said. “Kids. This is a kids’ market. This is Billy the Kid, Johnny the Kid, and Sheldon the Kid.” The three Kids stood up without taking their eyes from the moving tape, shook hands, and called me “sir” respectfully.

“Aren’t they cute?” the Great Winfield asked. “Aren’t they fuzzy? Look at them, like teddy bears. It’s their market. I have taken them on for the duration.”

Winfield then describes how much money Billy the Kid is making in computer leasing stocks like Leasco Data Processing and Randolph Computer that he has heavily leveraged with bank borrowing....

And the really spooky bit, for me anyway, SHALE:

...Sheldon the Kid waved his hand for recognition.

“This one will really take you back,” said the Great Winfield. “Sheldon’s Western Oil Shale has gone from three to thirty.”

“Sir!” said Sheldon. “The Western United States is sitting on a pool of oil five times as big as all the known reserves in the world – shale oil. Technology is coming along fast. When it comes, Equity Oil can earn seven hundred and fifty dollars a share.

It’s selling at twenty-four dollars. The first commercial underground nuclear test is coming up. The possibilities are so big no one can comprehend them.”

“Shale oil! Shale oil!” said the Great Winfield. “Takes you way back, doesn’t it. I bet you can barely remember it.”

“The shale oil play,” I said dreaming. “My old MG TC. A blond girl, tan from the summer sun, in the Hamptons, beer on the beach, ‘Unchained Melody,’ the little bar in the Village.”

“See? See?” said the Great Winfield. “The flow of the seasons. Life begins again. It’s marvelous. It’s like having a son! My boys! My Kids!”

The Great Winfield had made his point. Memory can get in the way of such a jolly market, that malaise that comes with the instantly gone, flickering feeling of déjà vu. We have all been here before.

“The strength of my kids is that they are too young to remember anything bad, and they are making so much money they feel invincible,” said the Great Winfield.

“Now you know and I know that one day the orchestra will stop playing and the wind will rattle through the broken window panes, and the anticipation of this freezes us. All of these kids but one will be broke, and that one will be the multi-millionaire, the Arthur Rock of the new generation. There is always one, and maybe we will find him.”...MORE