The student housing crisis continues, but the landscape has fundamentally shifted.

Canada's visa caps hit hard. First a 35% cut in 2024, then another 10% reduction bringing 2025 permits down to 437,000. New international students? Down nearly 70% from 2023 – and for those who are approved, the process has slowed to a crawl, leaving many in limbo for months before they can even book a flight. If you're planning housing investments, you're now working with projections that would have seemed impossible just two years ago.

This isn't just about fewer students – it's about unpredictable demand patterns.

With over 60% of study permits now allocated to extensions for students already in Canada, the flow of fresh international talent has slowed to a trickle. Meanwhile, domestic students continue to face the same housing pressures that existed before the caps. The impact varies dramatically by province – but Ontario and British Columbia face the most significant constraints.

Communities and institutions are still paying the price, but in different ways.

While international student rental demand may decline by 2026 if caps continue, the immediate impact on housing markets won't be felt until existing student populations graduate. Institutions must now navigate the complexity of serving both continuing international students and domestic students who still lack adequate housing options.

Now is the time for schools to act strategically. 

If you’re thinking of building a new student housing project, renovating an existing housing facility or entering into a partnership with a private developer, the path to success starts with a flexible strategic analysis that ties the housing needs and financial capacities of your students into your overall enrolment strategy.

That’s where CRI comes in.

Our Home Away From Home study leaves you with simple, actionable, data-driven steps to take so that your housing projects are driven by the needs of students you plan to house and enrol – whether visa policies stay the same, loosen up, or get even stricter.

Our interactive housing demand simulator lets you test different scenarios. What happens if international enrollment drops another 20%? What if domestic enrollment surges? How do different unit types and pricing strategies perform under various policy scenarios?

Having data that's produced and given to the institution by a consultant that has some expertise in this field, like CRI, really helps when justifying a decision to stakeholders such as senior university executives, Boards of Governors and/or local or provincial governments to have that third-party lens on it, validating what you’re saying and benchmarking it against the rest of the industry.

—Andrew Parr, Associate Vice President of Student Housing and Community Services at the University of British Columbia

Our research follows a key principle: when it comes to successful student housing projects, identifying and aligning with student needs is everything. 

For example: a mixed-use housing complex designed with large, high-rent one-bedroom units might look great on paper, but if your projected enrolment growth is concentrated in first-year students and international arrivals (who often prefer furnished, affordable shared spaces), you risk creating a building that’s mismatched to your actual market. The result can be empty units, missed revenue targets, and an asset that’s expensive to retrofit.

The bottom line: successful housing projects now require both student insight and policy savvy.

You can't just build what students want – you need to build what the students you can actually enroll will want, at prices they can afford, in numbers that make financial sense under various policy scenarios.

CRI has worked with every type of situation since 2010, from small colleges with 180 students to entire provincial systems with nearly 500,000 students. Our work is built around helping clients succeed through uncertainty.

Our Home Away From Home study gives you the most data-driven approach to student housing with the least amount of guesswork in an uncertain policy environment.

Grab us for a quick chat and we’ll show you how.

Grab us for a quick chat and we’ll show you how.