Village at Alafaya Club.Austin, Texas  — The ARA National Student Housing Group has released a year-end market report. According to the report, 2011 can be summed up in one word: recovery.

The research team of Chris Bancroft, Chris Epp, Pat Jones and Meredith Wolff concluded from national data that an increase in sales and demand strengthened the sector in 2011, potentially leading it back in 2012 to the same transaction levels achieved in 2005.

“The main findings to note are the volume of trades, increase in pricing and cap rate compression,” Bancroft says.
The pool of buyers and sellers continues to diversify, with institutional buyers and REITs taking advantage of low cost of capital to dominate the Class A acquisition space, while private capital continues to dominate the distressed and non-purpose built student housing offerings.

A total of 74 properties with a sales price of $5 million or more were sold in the United States in 2011, with the majority in the Southeast. The average cap rate for Class A properties was 6.19 percent, and 7.11 percent for Class B and C properties. For a copy of the report, visit www.arausa.com/studenthousing

ARA also has released an offering memorandum for The Village at Alafaya Club in Orlando. The property is less than one mile from the University of Central Florida. It was built in 1999 and consists of 228 units and 840 beds in three-bedroom, three-bath and four-bedroom, four-bath types.