General University Area Updates and Rumours

[taylortbb]

That's a decent analysis.  A 1,060-bed surplus is not unreasonable, it would be something like a 5% vacancy rate.  8,000+ beds would be quite different though.

But I do wonder about the counting:

Low-density rental licensing number generated by averaging two figures:
• 1. Counted 90% of licensed beds in catchment area and 25% beds outside catchment area
•2. CBRE Limited analysis figure

Is the "licensed beds" counting all rental aparments?  Barrel Yards, for example, is within the catchment area, and is (I think) primarily catering to the non-student population.

I'm pretty sure they're counting Barrel Yards as 90% student occupancy, which is pretty absurd. They also assume 25% of all other multi-residential beds in the city, which seems high. I doubt there's that many students living far enough from campus they're outside the catchment area.

I continue to believe we're not at oversupply. The students towers seem to still be displacing a lot of unlicensed low rise rentals, which are returning to non-student uses. As a result student housing growth should be viewed in the context of Waterloo's overall population growth, rather than just student enrollment growth, at least until we've achieved 80%+ displacement of unlicensed low rise rentals. A lot of the new buildings are also friendly to younger staff/researchers at the university that are without families, and would like a 1 bedroom apartment close to work.