Bill Bayless, CEO of American Campus Communities Inc. (NYSE: ACC), participated in a video interview in conjunction with Nareit’s REITworld: 2020 Annual Conference.
Bayless shared his thoughts on the time it will take to reach a pre-pandemic environment.
“Certainly as we move toward the fall of 2021, we expect to make great progress on that normalization. Whether or not we get fully back to 100% normalized occupancy that is typically averaged 97.5% is yet to be seen,” Bayless said.
He also noted that colleges and universities are realizing that older residence halls have not done as well in terms of mitigating the spread of the coronavirus, nor are they particularly desirable for students coming back on campus.
“We believe colleges and universities post-COVID will actually accelerate the modernization of on-campus student housing development,” Bayless said.