Fall 2026 Pre-Lease Season Starts Slowly

The Fall 2026 U.S. student housing pre-lease season started out slowly, recording the slowest October in over a decade.

As of October, just 3.3% of privately owned student housing beds across the U.S. were leased for the Fall 2026 semester. That was the slowest start to a pre-lease season since 2015. In the previous three pre-lease seasons, the lowest reading for October was in Fall 2025, with a showing of 7.2%. While Fall 2025 started out slowly, however, it did end up being the strongest season in recent history. Clearly a slow start doesn’t always mean a weak season, so there is still hope Fall 2026 can pick up some traction in the coming months.

(The same performance was seen among the core 175 universities tracked by RealPage, where 3.3% were leased as of October.)

With pre-lease occupancy so tight, rates were tightly clustered across distances from campus. Properties within a half mile of campus tied with communities furthest from campus, with both reporting pre-lease occupancy of 3.4% in October. Those within a half mile to one mile of campus were 2.7% occupied.

For more information on the state of the student housing industry, read previous posts on Student Housing.