Student Housing Portfolio Hits The Market In D.C.
A portfolio of D.C. apartments that has housed more than 25,000 student interns over the last two decades is being offered for sale.
Newmark Knight Frank announced Wednesday it was retained by the WISH Foundation to market the Washington Intern Student Housing portfolio, consisting of 122 apartments across 17 buildings in D.C.
The portfolio includes eight multifamily buildings totaling 113 units, plus nine single-unit residences. Sixteen of the properties are in Capitol Hill, and one is in Chinatown.
“The WISH portfolio provides investors multiple options including turn-key housing solutions, co-living, corporate housing or short stay furnished apartments in addition to operating the properties as luxury rental or for-sale housing,” NKF Senior Managing Director Lisa Benjamin, who is marketing the portfolio along with NKF Vice Chairman Christine Espenshade, said in a release.
The WISH Foundation, a D.C.-based organization with a mission to provide housing for interns staying in the nation's capital, began amassing the portfolio in the 1990s. In addition to the 17-property portfolio, WISH retained Newmark to market a stand-alone asset, a 38-unit apartment building at 2807 Connecticut Ave. NW in Woodley Park.
“In the late 1990’s my husband and I realized that there were all these students coming to D.C. who didn’t have money for food or the Metro, so we started acquiring properties offering affordable housing where they’d pay no more than what they were charged back in their hometowns,” WISH Foundation founder Jackie Lewis said in a release.
