Student residences, the object of desire for real estate investors

In a market analysis published at the beginning of March, Knight Frank predicted a favorable outlook for the student residence sector in 2025, "with several large-scale sales launches and investors' confidence in the fundamentals of this market intact".

After a year in 2024 in which Business Immo counted ten transactions totaling almost €250 million, the market picked up the tempo in the^1st quarter of 2025, with already four transactions committing investments of €110 million. The latest is the acquisition by Aberdeen - acting on behalf ofIrish Life Investment Managers - of a 144-lot residence from Groupe Cardinal for €27.5 million.

And that's not counting two XXL transactions that could be completed later in the year. Firstly, the acquisition by Global Student Accommodation and Nuveen Real Estate, announced at the end of last year, of Gecina 's YouFirst Campus platform on the basis of an implicit valuation of €567 million including transfer duties (€539 million excluding transfer duties). Comprising a portfolio of 18 assets in operation (nearly 3,300 beds) and four additional assets under development (nearly 400 beds), the transaction could be completed during the^1st half of 2025.

Secondly, J.P. Morgan Asset Management 's acquisition of a portfolio of seven assets sold by CBRE Investment Management. The American investor recently won exclusive rights to the portfolio following a competitive bidding process led by Rothschild & Co, in the second round of which Barings and Morgan Stanley were also among the finalists. According to our information, the acquisition price would be less than €200 million and reflect a yield of 4.25%.

" Many major international investors have identified managed residential property as a major focus, with student residences a particular priority", Mathieu Guillebault, Head of Residential Capital Markets at Savills France, recently told BiTV. According to Guillebault, this appetite can be explained not only by a desire for portfolio diversification and weighting, but also by the fact that "the market has not yet reached maturity in France, and there is still a lot of potential to come".

If the many investors who expressed their interest in student housing when they appeared on BiTV's show at the last Mipim are anything to go by, this could be just the start of a very busy year for the sector.