Student housing offers a prime investment opportunity, especially with the right location. Investors looking for stable, consistent returns may find college communities a smart place to invest. This is especially true as college enrollment continues to rise for our local university, University of Central Florida.
We were so proud to see Broker of Wemert Group Realty, Mike Wemert be featured by local WESH 2 News talking about student housing and local investment opportunities.
College students are mixing together with families in many neighborhoods around University of Central Florida, where students are now leaving behind dorms and apartments for single-family homes. This is a trend that is continuing to grow as UCF grows.
Mike Wemert mentioned most of our clients see the university as a benefit. “Now, people don’t want to live next to a frat house or live next to a bunch of college students necessarily, but usually you see in those neighborhoods, they’re kind of isolated more.”
One of the reasons why students are filling up homes in the neighborhoods is that on-campus nowadays is extremely tight. The undergrad population is almost 60,000 but there is only on-campus and university affiliated off campus housing for about 12,000. That means almost 80 percent of students must live off campus.
Mike Wemert also mentioned one reason that the neighborhoods remain stable is that many owners actually buy the houses for their own children to live in, along with a friend or two who pay rent. “Those people are buying it, holding it for four years, and selling it. So as long as we can keep the prices reasonable, can have another family come in and do the same thing,” Mike said.
Mike Wemert also added that homeowners associations play a major role. “If they try to put 6 or 8 people into a 3-bedroom, all of a sudden they have 6 or 8 cars sitting there and they’re parking on both sides of the streets, and the neighbors get upset and start making phone calls. And the HOA will enforce that,” Wemert said. When there are problems, UCF officials said the school has a neighborhood relations team that works with HOAs, including a website where people can submit complaints.
“We try to educate our buyers before they move in. So, we know why they’re buying the property. The people who really get in trouble are the people who go in there with their realtor, and don’t do their homework,” Mike Wemert concluded.
If you’re curious about what purchasing an investment property may look like in your own life, text or give us a call at 321-567-1202. We have an experienced agent on call ready to answer any question you may have.
