SFO grows its student housing portfolio by adding 524 beds at close proximity to the University of Illinois

SFO Group (“SFO”) announces the acquisition of Latitude Apartments (“Latitude”), a brand-new 524-bed student housing asset, increasing the total number of beds in its student housing portfolio to approximately 3,000.

Latitude is the closest off-campus student housing property to the University of Illinois (“UI”), a highly ranked establishment, member of the Power 5 athletic conference, with a nation wide top-ten engineering program. UI is attracting an increasingly large pool of students every year, with enrollment reaching a record 51,000 students in 2019 and projected to grow by 15% by 2024.

Commenting on the transaction, Mohamad Abouchalbak, CEO of SFO, said: “Latitude marks our fifth US student housing acquisition, as we still favor the sector for its defensive characteristics and attractive risk-adjusted returns. We continue to find compelling opportunities across the student housing space in the USA but remain highly selective by exclusively focusing on assets acquired at a discount to replacement costs, catering to top state universities benefitting from strong enrollment trends and favorable supply dynamics.”