National + Student Housing | April 26, 2021

DMG Investments’ Christian O’Lone Talks Opportunities in Student Housing (VIDEO)

A year ago, student housing as an asset class was viewed as one of the more problematic in view of the COVID-19 pandemic. For New York City-based DMG Investments, though, it has proven to be anything but problematic.

In the video above, Christian O’Lone, VP of asset management at DMG Investments, tells Connect Media CEO Daniel Ceniceros how his company has grown the student housing side of its platform—which posted impressive metrics on occupancy and rent collection during the pandemic—over the past year. First order of business was to mitigate the spread of the virus at DMG’s own communities, which now run to nearly 2,000 beds.

As 2020 progressed, O’Lone said, “we turned our attention to the business side, and how we could turn this into an opportunity, specifically on the acquisition side and development.”

And development most certainly represents an opportunity in the student housing space, especially in markets outside the largest college towns. “Student housing as a customer class is still vastly underserved throughout the country,” said O’Lone.

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About Paul Bubny

Paul Bubny serves as Senior Content Director for Connect Commercial Real Estate, a role to which he brings 13-plus years’ experience covering the commercial real estate industry and 30-plus years in business-to-business journalism. In this capacity, he oversees daily operations while also reporting on both local/regional markets and national trends, covering individual transactions across all property types, as well as delving into broader subject matter. He produces 15-20 daily news stories per day and works with the Connect team and clients to develop longer-form content, ranging from Q&As to thought-leadership pieces. Prior to joining Connect, Paul was Managing Editor for both Real Estate Forum and GlobeSt.com at American Lawyer Media, where he oversaw operations at both publications while also producing daily news and feature-length articles. His tenure in B2B publishing stretches back into the print era, and he has served as Editor in Chief on four national trade publications. Since 1999, Paul has volunteered as the newsletter editor of passenger rail advocacy groups (one national, one local).

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