Landmark Properties, one of the largest developers of student housing in the United States, has expanded into the United Kingdom and Ireland, countries where it said opportunity abounds because demand generally is outpacing supply.

Landmark, based in Athens, Georgia, about 70 miles northeast of Atlanta, said it hired Tom Banning to spearhead its overseas effort as director of United Kingdom and Ireland developments. It enters the European market as it celebrates its 20th anniversary.

In the States, Landmark's portfolio contains 115 residential communities with 71,000 beds under management. Its $5 billion development pipeline is filled with 22 student accommodation and multifamily projects underway or about to start. In 2023 alone, Landmark delivered 25% of all off-campus student housing in the United States, the company said.

The United Kingdom and Ireland markets "offer attractive opportunities for student housing development due to a supply-demand imbalance, rising enrollment numbers, and a less mature market than the US," Landmark said in a statement.

“We see a tremendous opportunity to develop purpose-built student housing in the UK and Ireland and are confident that our expertise in developing high-quality student accommodations will be well-received," Wes Rogers, president and CEO of Landmark, said in a statement.

As for its leader in the countries, Banning joined Landmark from CA Ventures in London, where he worked for more than five years and most recently served as senior vice president of development. Before that, Banning served as development director at Watkins Jones Group. He also worked at Threesixty Developments and Knightsbridge Student Housing.

Landmark is "Actively looking for pipeline," Banning said in his LinkedIn profile.

Landmark has had success forming partnerships with the some of the world's largest institutional investors. In 2022, it formed a $2 billion venture with one of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority to expand its portfolio of properties in a move that is double the size of a venture the duo formed together earlier this year.

In August 2021, Landmark and Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust, or BREIT, agreed to a $784 million deal to recapitalize eight student housing properties with a total of 5,416 beds.

Landmark traces its roots back to the University of Georgia, where Rogers and co-founder James Whitley were working on their MBAs in the early 2000s, when Rogers wrote a business plan centered on developing properties that would be as recession-proof as possible. The plan proved prescient for the company they founded, and it still pays large dividends today.

Rogers and Whitley picked the student housing and medical office sectors as their focus and launched Landmark Properties in 2004, with projects in North Georgia. They quickly found they enjoyed working with one property more than the other.

"The medical office deal was long to lease up, and you're negotiating with doctors who think they know everything," Rogers said in a 2022 interview. "It took forever, and we made a little money on it, but it took a lot of brain damage and a lot of time, whereas the student housing deals were very quick to lease up. We built them and executed and were able to generate really strong returns in a really short period of time."