After its slowest kickoff in a decade, the U.S. student housing market saw a notable rebound, closing the year with two consecutive months of strong pre-lease activity, according to RealPage.
As of December, 27.1% of student housing beds nationwide were leased for the Fall 2026 semester, marking a significant improvement from November and a rebound from October, which recorded the slowest start to pre-leasing since Fall 2016. While the December 2026 figure is ahead of Fall 2025, it still lags behind the roughly 40% pre-leased at the same point in Fall 2023 and Fall 2024.
"A slow start doesn't always end up in a weak season, as evidenced by the strong showing in the past two months," said RealPage. Fall 2025, for example, began slowly but ultimately reached 96.5% of beds leased nationally, one of the strongest pre-leasing seasons in recent history.
Among the 175 universities tracked by RealPage, the pre-leasing progress was even more pronounced, with 28.9% of beds leased, as of December, up from 18.4% in November.
Pre-leasing rates were fairly consistent across different distances from campus: properties within a half mile of campus jumped to 27.2% leased, those more than a mile away hit 27% and units between half a mile and one mile reached 26.9%.
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