Can each market absorb what's coming?

Auburn and Norman have nothing in the comp file waiting to open before fall 2027. Madison must absorb 1,863 beds just to hold occupancy, 4.0× its best recent year.

What is coming

Madison's pipeline equals 43% of its operating beds; Auburn's is 5%

Operating beds in Oct-26, plus pre-delivery buildings in the comp file (pre-leasing for fall 2027) and announced projects for fall 2028 (lighter).

Auburn17,351 + 825
Norman8,145 + 756
Madison9,325 + 3,996

Source: LV Collective comp file; WTVM, Gilbane and The Daily Cardinal for fall-2028 projects.

Absorption test

Beds the market must lease to hold its Oct-26 occupancy once its comp-file pipeline opens, against the best year-over-year absorption it has shown. Absorption excludes occupied beds from properties newly added to the survey.

Madison needs 1,863 beds of absorption, 4.0× its best year of 465

Auburn

Needed to hold occ.0

Best year shown1,390

Norman

Needed to hold occ.0

Best year shown383

Madison

Needed to hold occ.1,863

Best year shown465

Bars share one scale starting at 0 beds.

Source: LV Collective comp file. Needed = fall-2027 pre-delivery beds × Oct-26 stabilized occupancy.

Fall-2027 simulator

Change the assumptions to stress each market. Results are seeded, so the same inputs always return the same answer.

Assumptions

Auburn

Enrollment growth, mean+3.0%

Flight-to-quality absorption, beds0

Norman

Enrollment growth, mean+3.0%

Flight-to-quality absorption, beds0

Madison

Enrollment growth, mean−2.0%

Flight-to-quality absorption, beds0

Chance each pre-delivery building opens on time90%

Hypothetical LV project, delivered fall 2027

beds in

Madison's median fall-2027 occupancy is 65.8%; Auburn's is 99.0%

5,000 seeded runs per market. Demand = Oct-26 occupied beds × (1 + g), g ~ Normal(mean, 1.5%), plus flight-to-quality beds. Supply = operating beds + each pre-delivery building with the chance above + the LV project. Occupancy capped at 99%. Bars show how often each occupancy came up, scaled within each market; the dark line marks the median; the dashed line marks 90%.

Simulated fall-2027 occupancy percentiles
Market	P10	P50	P90	Chance below 90%
Auburn	98.2%	99.0%	99.0%	0%
Norman	96.6%	98.5%	99.0%	0%
Madison	64.4%	65.8%	70.6%	100%

What lease-ups tell us

Across 128 property-year pairs, occupancy is a weak straight-line predictor of next year's rent growth (r = −0.04). The tails still differ: properties at 97% or higher raised rent 6.5% at the median, against 2.7% for those below 93% (one-sided Mann–Whitney p = 0.04). New buildings that priced above market filled anyway.

Two lease-ups priced 35%+ above market filled to 100%; the three that discounted opened at 56%–94%

Each dot is a building that opened in the survey window; area is beds.

Source: LV Collective comp file. Rent vs market = asking rent ÷ that year's bed-weighted market average − 1.

Development yield sketch

A back-of-envelope check on whether a new build pencils. Every input here is your assumption; occupancy defaults to the simulator's fall-2027 median at memo settings.

% opex(your assumption)

Market	New-build rent, $/bed/moyour assumption	Cost per bedyour assumption	Occupancydefault: MC P50	NOI, $/bed/yr	Yield on cost
AuburnMarket avg $1,121	Auburn new-build rent per bed per month$	Auburn development cost per bed, thousands of dollars$k	Auburn occupancy assumption, percent%	$10,680	11.2%
NormanMarket avg $785	Norman new-build rent per bed per month$	Norman development cost per bed, thousands of dollars$k	Norman occupancy assumption, percent%	$8,227	9.7%
MadisonMarket avg $1,440	Madison new-build rent per bed per month$	Madison development cost per bed, thousands of dollars$k	Madison occupancy assumption, percent%	$6,595	4.7%

Untrended, stabilized. Yield on cost = rent × 12 × occupancy × (1 − opex) ÷ cost per bed. Rent, cost and opex are user assumptions, not comp-file data.