Tyler Beazer, a senior political science major, has lived in several apartment complexes.
“At (my) previous complex, the Landing, I found that (management) cared deeply for their residents and did what they could to improve the current living situation,” Beazer said.
When an old roommate got home from his mission and suggested rooming at a different complex for the 2022 spring semester, Beazer hoped it would be a chance for a change in management.
He never suspected the two apartments had the same management company.
Many BYU-Idaho students do not know who their property managers are. Some students may leave a complex over management concerns and inadvertently move to another apartment with the same management team.
Scroll cataloged the managers of every BYU-I-approved student housing complex, using website data, email records and discussions with the BYU-I Housing office. The map can be viewed here and the results are shown below.
Who manages who?
A bar chart of apartment management. Photo credit: Spencer Driggs
Redstone Residential manages 17 properties, more than any other real estate group by far. They run several individual complexes, as well as all of Rexburg Housing.
They manage University View, Colonial House, Nauvoo House, The Gates, La Jolla, Windsor Manor, The Pines, Heritage and Abri Apartments.
Through Rexburg Housing they also manage Birch Plaza, Alpine Chalet, Rockland Apartment, Somerset Apartments, Autumn Winds, Brookside Village and Georgetown Apartments.
Connextion is a property management company based in Rexburg that specializes in student housing, but they also own several community housing apartments across town. This includes Sundance, The Towers, Bountiful Place, Brighton, Clarke and Arcadia apartments.
Covey Regional manages American Avenue, Sunrise Village, Delta Phi and Hillcrest Townhouses. They are based out of Salt Lake City.
South Fork Property Management, owners of The Cove and The Lodge, are a subsidiary of Brad Hall Companies, a fuel company based in Idaho Falls. Brad Hall started with a focus in fuel and trucking but has since expanded into real estate, convenience stores and health care.
Craigland Housing runs Royal Crest, Bunkhouse, Cottonwood and Brooklyn Apartments.
Best Nest Housing runs Carriage House, Greenbrier, Avonlea Apartments, The Red Door, The Blue Door, Briarwood Apartments and Sunset Hall, plus the Jacob, Chapman, Pincock and Whitfield houses.
A scatterplot of occupancy and complexes, with Redstone as a clear outlier. Photo credit: Spencer Driggs
Different companies focus on different student housing environments. Best Nest Housing runs the second-most number of buildings at 12, but scores only seventh-highest in total occupancy. South Fork Property Management, owners of The Cove and The Lodge, owns only a few large complexes.
The largest student housing management group, Redstone Residential, is a national multifamily and student housing investor and operator headquartered in Provo, Utah. Their website boasts 35,000 leases of multifamily and student housing across 18 states.
Redstone Residential did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Why this happens
Redstone and others don’t own the complexes they manage. Many landlords hire them to manage the logistics of daily living and compliance with the BYU-I approved housing standards.
For students, these management groups bring consistency and expertise to young, often first-time renters. Students also trust that BYU-I will help enforce the housing standards when apartments slack.
At its worst, a consolidating market can also lead to higher pricing. Although Beazer’s experience at Colonial House has been satisfactory so far, that’s what he’s worried about.
“I’ve seen, as they’ve taken a greater stronghold on the Rexburg housing market, that prices go up with little to no improvement,” Beazer said.
The Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, a measure of total market concentration, for student housing scores 1,364, with over 1,100 of those points coming from Redstone Residential. The anti-trust division of the U.S. Justice Department considers markets under 1,500 points to have low market concentration.
Other students believe that the impact of the management company isn’t as important as a friendly on-site manager, supportive roommates and overall apartment environment.
Sydney Clark, a senior studying graphic design, has one apartment deal-breaker.
“The fridge-to-tenant ratio,” she said.
Research notes
Scroll started with a database on student housing from the BYU-I math department’s statistics class. That database tracks male and female apartments separately, so a complex like Colonial House will have a separate entry for the men’s building and the women’s building. The trends in student housing ownership might not be the same across married housing or community housing.
