Student Housing Unlocked: Inside LV Collective’s Growth Strategy | Chris Kott & Olivia Bunescu

As development costs and financing conditions continue to shape what gets built, student housing companies are looking for more flexible ways to expand. For LV Collective (‪@lvcollective‬) that has meant expanding beyond its Austin roots and building a vertically integrated national platform that brings investments, development, operations, design and marketing under one roof. Today, LV Collective has roughly 7,500 beds and $2 billion in projects under construction, according to the company’s CIO Chris Kott. In this episode of Student Housing Unlocked, Kott joins Senior Associate Editor Olivia Bunescu to discuss the fundamentals guiding the company’s growth strategy and how its integrated platform supports both ground-up development and acquisitions. For Kott, market selection starts with supply and demand. On the demand side, the company examines university size, sustained enrollment growth and whether an institution has taken concrete steps to meet its growth targets. On the supply side, the firm mainly considers the development pipeline and barriers to entry, including construction challenges, topography and the local approval environment. Here are the topics discussed: LV Collective’s evolution and national growth strategy (01:38) How vertical integration influences investment decisions (04:29) Supply, demand and university market selection (05:41) Market warning signs and the value of campus visits (07:05) Competition from conventional multifamily (09:08) Choosing between development and acquisitions (10:30) The investment case for College Station (12:22) Tailoring projects to individual university markets (14:50) Safety, wellness and community in the resident experience (16:12) LV Collective’s next phase of expansion (17:46) #MHN #TheLeaseUp #StudentHousingUnlocked #LVCollective