Apparently, student housing is all the rage (or, as I prefer tosay, rah-jay) when it comes to niche sectors within themultifamily industry. I knew the sector was doing well, but justhow well it was doing came as a bit of a surprise to me as Ilistened to speaker after speaker at the National MultiHousing Council’s 2010 Student Housing Conference andExposition in Washington, DC last week.

Those of you who follow me on Twitterprobably saw my tweets on the sessions held throughout the two-daymeeting, which was pretty well attended by developers, investors,operators, capital sources and folks in other segments of themarket. One very telling sign of the market’s interest in studenthousing was in the attendees: one speaker asked audience members toraise their hands if they’re first-time attendees of theconference, and a good amount of people were. Then he askedattendees to raise their hands if they’re not currently involved instudent housing, and most of those same hands were raised.

Obviously, the sector’s popped up on many industry participants’radar screens.