Campus Advantage Plans to Spend $200M in 2015

Campus Advantage acquired more than $210M in student housing projects last year with its JV partners. (Do those come with Bob Marley posters or do you have to buy those separately?) The student housing firm plans to do that much or more this year while raising some $150M to $200M in equity, too.

Campus Advantage president and CEO Mike Peter (here, with his family) tells us the firm exceeded its expectations for 2014 by acquiring seven properties, delivering record retention (47%), occupancy (96.4%) and rental rate growth (2.9%) across the portfolios it manages. Between January 2013 and October 2014, Campus Advantage was the largest acquirer of student housing assets with $354M in acquisitions, according to Real Capital Analytics.

The company already has several new development deals in the pipeline and plans to purchase five additional communities this year, he says. Campus Advantage also broke ground recently on a new project less than a block from the University of Tennessee (pictured) in Knoxville as developer and operator. Mike tells us the Knoxville project is special because of its location in a historic district. But, that also set off some concerns among the preservation community. Mike says Campus Advantage listened to their concerns and emphasized the firm’s program expertise and model (to assure them of no copycat scenes from Animal House) and ultimately won their support. Mike’s New Year’s resolutions are to continue delivering superior performance to his investment partners and shareholders and to lose 15 pounds.