All Episodes

In this episode, co-host Gretta Dare joins us after being away from the podcast for almost a year.  She catches us up on what she has been up to and her new company, Book & Ladder.  Additionally, we dive into a session from our MEMO web series with author and entrepreneur, Willie Butler, to discuss what the "lease-up" process in student housing teaches us about leadership.
 
This episode is sponsored by Vector Travel!  Contact them today to find out how they can turn your completely vacant units into revenue producing short term rentals without all of the headache.  Click here to receive a free analysis on what Vector can do for you: https://www.vectorstays.com/shi/ 

Due to a year of lock-downs and lenders providing extensions of loan maturities, a large amount of student housing property owners are looking to secure refinancing this year.  But what does that mean for managers and site staff who are tasked with preparing the property for the multiple inspections and other tasks related to the underwriting process?  We answer that question and many more in this episode when we sit down with Will Baker from Walker & Dunlop.
We also sit down with Rich Kelley from Student Housing Business Magazine to discuss this year's Interface Student Housing Conference in Austin TX scheduled for July 13th-15th.  Rich will give us a preview of what is on tap and what attendees can expect after last year's event ultimately had to go virtual.
This episode is sponsored by Vector Travel.  Get a free assessment to see if your property is a good candidate for providing short term rental stays.  Go to www.vectorstays.com/SHI
Get more info about SHI's events and join our on-line community at www.StudentHousingInsight.com 

Nationwide, student housing pre-leasing is trending behind the numbers from last year.  Mainly because 1st quarter of 2020, classes were wide-open through mid-March.  As colleges begin announcing their intentions for Fall ’21 and the vaccine groups are expanding, the industry is anticipating a late surge in leasing prior to the spring semester ending and likely another big surge in late summer as confidence builds that campuses will be fully open.  In this session we want to provide insight on how leasing teams should be thinking and strategizing as we approach the end of spring and transition into the summer.
 
This episode is sponsored by Vector Travel: https://www.vectorstays.com/shi
 

In this session, we talk with Lincoln Ogata from EZ Turn and Mat Windsor of The Turn Company to talk about new approaches to managing the logistics of Summer Turn.
 
This episode is sponsored by Vector Travel:https://www.vectorstays.com/shi/ 

A lot of private purpose-built student housing communities are expected to be sold in the coming year.  Between the pandemic halting many of the transactions tee'd up for 2020 and a higher number of CMBS loans reaching their 10-year maturity in 2021-2022, there will likely be a record number of transactions this year.
So, we wanted to find out how on-site staff can position their property for a successful sale.  In this episode, Wes sits down with Jamie Swick of Colliers International to discuss what she has seen throughout her career that site staff and property managers should be thinking about.  Joining Wes as guest co-hosts, Ryan Hand who is the VP of Business Development at CA Ventures, and Greg King who is a General Manager with Asset Living... both give their perspectives on property sales and take-a-ways from the interview with Jamie.
This episode is sponsored by Vector Travel.  Find out how to turn your fully vacant units into short-term rental income.  Get a free assessment to find out if your property would make a good fit for the Vector Travel platform.  Also, use this link and get your fees waived for the first month: https://www.vectorstays.com/shi/ 
Contact info for this episode's guest and co-hosts:
Jamie Swick:  jamie.swick@colliers.com 
Wesley Deese:  Contact@StudentHouisngInsight.com
Ryan Hand: RHand@ca-ventures.com 
Greg King:  greg.king@AssetLiving.com 
 
Join the SHI Community at www.StudentHousingInsight.com 

In this episode, we sit down with ACUHO-I's  new board president, Peter Galloway, to discuss what all on-campus housing officers had to overcome for fall 2020 and the outlook for 2021.
 
This episode is sponsored by Vector Travel.  To find out how you can convert vacant apartment units into short term rental units without all of the hassle, contact them today at:  https://www.vectorstays.com/shi/  

In this episode, we share an interview taken from SHI's new weekly on-line meet-up called MEMO.  The interview is with best selling author and award-winning entrepreneur, Kristen Hadeed.  Host Wesley Deese and special co-host Jennifer Cassidy sit down with Kristen to discuss her journey and leadership lessons she has gained from operating a cleaning company that employs nearly 500 students every year and was the inspiration for her book.
Wes then sits down with 3 of SHI's Ambassadors (Erin Shay, Randy Paulissen, and Maria Filippone) to get discuss their take-a-ways from the interview and how they are implementing them with their teams.
This episode is sponsored by Carter-Young.

It's been a minute!  We've taken some time off at the end of 2020 from making content to refocus and strategize on how to make SHI the best resource for student housing professionals and especially those of us on the operations side of the business.
In this episode, we dive into what is new at SHI and what you can expect in 2021.  We also sit down with one of SHI's Ambassadors for 2021, Jessica Delis with Campus Advantage, to talk about what she's doing for herself and her team to help them set goals after coming off a year where it felt like the goalposts were moving every week.
 
This episode is sponsored by Carter-Young.  For more information on Carter-Young and why they are the industry's #1 choice in revenue recovery services, go to www.carter-young.com 
For more information on our upcoming MEMO Web Series, go to https://www.studenthousinginsight.com/memo and through Feb 2nd, use promo code MEMO50 to receive 50% off the registration.

This summer, which has been dubbed the Summer of George Floyd after his death at the hands of a police officer, the voices I’ve heard from those that work in the student housing industry have two major themes: 1. Internal reflection about unconscious biases about race, gender, and sexual orientation that may determine decisions and reactions that we were not aware of. 2. How will this impact our student residents, and how can we make them feel safe and supported. It’s time we (as an industry) start talking about these things. We may not have the answers, but we have to start the discussion and shine a light on these issues. This discussion is the next step SHI is taking to continue this discussion. In a previous session, we talked about ways the industry needs to prepare itself for a fall semester that is not only unique because of the pandemic but also how "our students" will likely react to politically charged rhetoric this election season. For today’s discussion, we want to focus on “our people” – the employees, our supervisors, or executive leadership, even ownership structures and what is on our minds about changes that should be made to provide a more diverse and inclusive industry.
This episode includes the following speakers:
Host - Wesley Deese (CEO of Student Housing Insight)
Guest Co-Host - Angela Shaw (VP of HR @ Campus Advantage)
Panelists:
Gretta Dare (President of Fetch Marketing)
Adam Yarber (Dir of Resident Experience @ Campus Advantage)
Ashlei Elise (Dir of Marketing & Leasing @ Varsity Campus)
Willie Butler (Principal @ Empower Property Management Consulting)
Billie Peterson (Portfolio Sales & Marketing Mgr @ Cardinal Group Management)
Lincoln Ogata (VP at EZ Turn)
Terence Jackson (Exec Dir. of Cayce Cove @ Pierce Education)
Jackie Pingel (Client Success Mgr@ Peak Campus)
Links:
Prior diversity and race discussion about supporting students this fall 2020https://youtu.be/qlpUxI30TrE
This episode is sponsored by Carter-Young Inc.  For more information, please reach out to www.carter-young.com 

In this episode, we sit down the folks from Interface and NMHC to discuss their upcoming virtual conference and we discuss what the national eviction moratorium means for everybody. 
To register for the NMHC/Interface Student Housing Conference go to:
https://interfaceconferencegroup.com/event/nmhc-interface-student-housing-2020/
 
This episode Is sponsored by Carter-Young, Inc.
 
To join the SHI Community, go to www.StudentHousingInsight.com 

Creating programming and developing experiences to help foster a sense of community is essential to the success of a university as well as any off-campus student properties.  That task was tough in a pre-COVID world.  Both university res-life departments and off-campus managers are now trying to figure out what those experiences will look like this fall while the virus is still prevalent.  Things as simple as a pizza party now must take into consideration 100 other issues related to sanitization and reducing the spread of germs.  In this episode, we sit down with folks who have been tasked with developing those experiences while understanding public health guidelines.  The purpose is to help others who are tasked with the same responsibility who may need some idea to spark their own creativity and to outline points that need to be considered.
Panelists: 
Dr. Jamie Panven, Assistant VP of Student Success & Resident Retention - Radford University
Adam Yarber, Director of Resident Experience - Campus Advantage
Shari Bethea, Regional Leasing Specialist - Varsity Campus
 
This episode is sponsored by Carter Young, Inc. - the student housing debt recovery specialists!
 
Join the SHI Community by going to www.StudentHousingInsight.com and clicking on the "Log-In" link in the upper right hand corner!

Last summer we asked the question if it makes sense to list vacant student housing apartments as short term rentals on platforms like Air BnB.  The conclusion?  In most cases it will probably work, but we highly recommend having a service provider partner with you as it is very management intensive and also opens the door to a lot of liability when a management company does it themselves.  The service provider we recommend is Vector Travel!  They do this for a ton of student housing clients and they get the challenges of introducing a transient business model to a student housing property.
 
With the COVID 19 pandemic causing extra vacancy in a lot of student housing markets, we wanted to bring in Vector Travel's CEO, Mickey Kropf, to talk about how the short term rental has been impacted by COVID 19 and how they can help the student housing industry turn their vacant units into short term rental income that in some cases may outpace market rents.
 
If you want to hear our previous episode about short term rentals, click here!
 
To get more information from Vector Travel and to qualify for ZERO fees on the first month of service, go to www.VectorStays.com/SHI 

The US is confronting a lot of diversity issues in the wake of the recent police brutality events and the homicide of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.  This has resulted in a litany of protests and rioting.  With on-going stresses to the economy and mental health with the COVID 19 pandemic combined with political narratives with the upcoming presidential election this November, there is a perfect recipe not only protests to occur on college campuses this fall but for there to be unrest between different demographics and ideology of students.
Student Housing operators have a unique opportunity to help guide students through this time in a healthy and productive way.  To ignore that opportunity could result in huge financial losses for an off-campus community.
In this episode, Wes sits down with Terence Jackson of Pierce Education Properties and Quan McLaurin, formerly the diversity retention director at Liberty University who resigned in protest of recent public comments made by university leadership.  The discussion focuses on what property managers and housing administrators can expect this fall as it relates to students' sentiments related to diversity and how to use programming and operating protocols to help students feel heard and appreciated.
This episode is sponsored by Carter-Young and Associates.

Bryan Alexander is an internationally known futurist who has dedicated his career to researching how technology will transform the future of higher education.  This dedication made him the "go-to advisor" for publications like The Chronicle of Education and other national media outlets, as well as institutions and companies when COVID-19 thrust faculty and students into remote study in order to finish out the spring semester.
In this episode, Wes sits down with Bryan in a keynote fireside chat from SHI's spring webinar series, "Planning for Fall 2020."  They review higher ed's wins and losses from the spring semester as well as short and long term impacts COVID-19 will likely have on the industry.  Additionally, Bryan reviews his 3 likely scenarios that will play out for fall 2020 and how student housing will likely be impacted.
This episode is sponsored by Carter-Young, Inc.
Resources mentioned:
Bryan's website: www.BryanAnderson.org
Bryan newest books:  Academia Next: The Futures of Higher Education
Wes's LinkedIn Article:  What College Campuses May Look Like this Fall... From the Perspective of an Off-Campus Housing Professional
SHI's YouTube Channel
Link for SHI's webinar series on COVID-19's Impact on Student Housing.

In part 1 of this episode we discussed how to reach and market to students during a pandemic. But what about closing leases when everyone is remote and tours have to be done virtually?
In this episode, Wes sits down with co-host Willie Butler to discuss how leasing staff needs to adapt their tactics and mindset in order to best serve prospective residents.  We also bring in Matt Easton from Leasing University to discuss the best way to do virtual tours.
This episode is sponsored by Carter-Young, Inc.
To find your local university's food bank, go to www.cufba.org and click on "Find a Pantry."
Referenced Resources :
Matt Easton on LinkedIn
Leasing University
Zendesk Chat