Sector Report on Canada’s Student Housing Market and its Outlook by Cushman Wakefield

The downloadable PDF is a 2021 report on Canada’s student accommodation outlook by Cushman. Also highlighted below are CIBT’s differentiating attributes in our business model. GEC has the following advantages in addition to those highlighted in the Cushman report:

• GEC did not corner itself into the Purpose Build category, with a generic market rental design & zoning approvals for future exit flexibility
• Off-Campus locations eliminating the single customer risk.  GEC does not rely on student flows from a single school in a small town.  Instead, GEC is serving 90 schools with students from 71 countries. GEC stays within a metropolitan city popular for international students.  From 2019 to 2021, Canada consistently ranked Top 1 and Top 5 “Most Popular International Education Destination in the World” by educations.com and US News. Vancouver is the top 3 city in Canada for international students.
• Most GEC properties locate next to subway stations with less than 500 meters of walking distance, which reduces security risks for students commuting to and from our properties.
• Higher density with smart-furniture tastefully furnished (see GEC smart-furniture website: www.sepsion.ca)
• Fully furnished with kitchen utensils, bedding supplies, high security, fiber internet, weekly housekeeping, and many other value-added propositions.
• Unaffected by the rent control cap on residential use due to flexible leases of less than one year.
• GEC can bundle the rental fees with our sister schools and partner school’s tuition fees, effectively collect the rental fees upfront with the tuition fees, reduced the bad-debt risks, and eliminated the rent control measures.
• B2B model serving 90 schools in Metro Vancouver, complemented by a B2C model with direct exposure to students from across Canada and around the globe.
• As first-mover with substantial scale, GEC distances itself from potential competitions by developing Education Super Center and Education Mega Centers, with a $200 – $300 million scale, several times larger than any conventional rental apartment.
• Visit us at: www.GECliving.com and watch our student testimonials here: https://gecliving.com/invest/

Source: https://www.cushmanwakefield.com/en/canada/insights/2021-canadian-student-housing-outlook