New rental report: Reaching saturation point on high-end housing near campus?
APC's annual rental housing report notes developers' rise to deal with 'steep housing shortage,' but asks whether an 'affordability crisis' is being met. Plus other notes.
An annual rental housing report, assembled by the Area Plan Commission and released last week, suggested that the sight of cranes 2025 brought across downtown Lafayette and up State Street hill into West Lafayette will persist in 2026.
“Since last year, the county’s residential development has hit a historically high threshold, with building permits more than doubling the previous year’s total in just the first six months of 2025,” planners wrote in the 2025 Rental Report, an annual look at rental housing, particularly near Purdue’s campus.
“Suffice it to say the community’s clarion call for more housing has drawn developers from across the country who promise solutions for the steep housing shortage,” the report says. “Whether or not these solutions have been designed to tackle the flip side of the supply crisis – the affordability crisis – remains to be seen.”
The report indicates that vacancy rates went up in parts of near-campus neighborhoods where they’d been hovering below 1% for some time.
But planners signaled that some of the questions bubbling up in the past year about reaching a saturation point with certain kind of high-end projects were worth listening to.
From the report:
“Given the county’s historically high number of building permits issued in 2025 for multifamily projects, it is clear that sorely needed housing stock is materializing in some form. With that in mind, however, gradually increasing vacancy rates – particularly in West Lafayette – present an opportunity for our local legislative bodies to evaluate the volume of projects currently in the pipeline and decide at which point this ever-flowing stream of proposals may begin to lean toward over-saturation. While housing will certainly remain a pressing need, it is essential that housing stock coming online in the near term be distributed across each segment of the market equitably. A growing body of research challenges the popular assumption that an increase in ‘market-rate’ or high-end ‘luxury’ housing stock will indirectly create a ‘trickle down’ effect that frees up rental units and lowers price points in the middle- and low-income market segments over the near term. A larger proportion of diverse building types and price points, beyond the luxury multifamily high-rise, will be needed to more sustainably fulfill the needs of all residents in our growing community.”
Here are some of the data and other findings:
>> Average vacancy rates in West Lafayette reached 1.54%, their highest point since 2017, when the same report marked a 2.13% vacancy rate. While still tight, that is up from what had been a five-average of 1.16% in West Lafayette, according to the report. From the survey: “Responses to the landlord survey indicate average rental vacancies have increased in the near-campus area, and data provided by the county assessor indicates bed occupancy for student rentals at the end of 2025 was at its lowest since the beginning of 2021.”
>> In what the report designated as urban census tracts in West Lafayette – generally in neighborhoods near Purdue’s campus – the city had a 2.31% vacancy rate in 2025, up from a 0.98% average a year earlier, and up from a five-year average of 1.29%. The suburban part of the West Lafayette Area had an average residential vacancy rate of 1.44% in 2025, down from 1.51% in 2024.
>> Based on a survey of landlords and property managers for campus-oriented rentals – with 42 responding of 128 contacted, representing 3,914 residential units with 5,507 total beds – the report broke down data based on how close the rental units were from campus, finding:
In an area near campus, where students did not qualify for a parking pass for Purdue’s lots and garages, approximately 0.75% of the total units remained vacant, up from the 0% vacancy reported in 2024. The highest reported vacancy for a single complex was approximately 10%.
In parts of West Lafayette that did qualify students for commuter parking passes at Purdue, on average over the course of the 2024-2025 school year, approximately 7.55% of the total units remained vacant, up from 3.03% reported in 2024. The highest reported vacancy for a single complex was approximately 17%.
In Lafayette, over the course of the 2024-2025 school year, approximately 2.91% of the total units remained vacant, up from 0% reported in 2024. The highest reported vacancy for a single complex was approximately 5%.
>> Purdue University Housing’s capacity totaled 16,151 on-campus beds – up from 15,238 a year earlier – and 1,845 off-campus “master lease” beds, which was up from 1,032 a year earlier. That made for a grand total of 17,996 beds. The vacancy rate in campus housing was listed in the report at 4.3%, up from 0.02% a year earlier.
>> Lafayette’s urban census tracts – generally defined as south and west of Sagamore Parkway to the Wabash River, and north of Teal Road – had an average vacancy rate of 5.4% in 2025, down from 5.64% in 2024. The five-year average vacancy rate in those urban area was 5.86%, according to the report. Suburban area had an average vacancy rate of 1.78% in 2025, up from 1.66% in 2024, and a five-year average vacancy rate of 1.53%.
>> Building permits for multifamily projects set records in 2025, with 68% of those in West Lafayette.
>> The report says the city of West Lafayette’s rental inspection program had 11,121 units with 23,394 bedrooms in its database, as of December 2025. That was a 1.6% increase over the totals in 2024 and a 2% increase from December 2024. Of those, the report said, there were:
1,011 single-family dwellings with 3,327 bedrooms, representing a 2.6% increase in units and a 2.6% increase in bedrooms over the previous year.
182 dwellings in two-family buildings containing 439 bedrooms, representing a 17.3% decrease in units and a 16.1% decrease in bedrooms.
126 dwellings in three-family buildings containing 251 bedrooms, representing a 19.2% decrease in units and a 25.3% decrease in bedrooms.
9,802 dwellings in multifamily buildings containing 19,377 bedrooms, representing a 2.3% increase in units and a 2.8% increase in bedrooms from December 2024.
>> Rent prices continued to rise across the community, at an estimated 21% since 2021.
>> Options for subsidized housing vouchers will decrease in 2026, as emergency housing vouchers, intended for residents who are either homeless or otherwise at risk, will be phased out by the federal government. According to the survey: “The total number of vouchers allocated in 2025 served less than half (46.4%) of total eligible recipients, down from 50.5% of eligible recipients served last year.”
>> The report tracked multifamily housing developments completed in 2025.
In Lafayette, those included:
Churchwoods, 320 Chapel Drive, 260 units.
Parkside Flats, four of 20 total units complete near Scott Street.
Poland Hill Apartments, Poland Hill Road, 144 units.
Snowy Owl Commons, 50 units in a senior complex along Twyckenham Boulevard.
In West Lafayette:
4 Up, 353 Vine St., 191 units.
Ever, 147 W. Wood St., 143 units
Weida on Waldron, 221 Waldron St., 70 units
3rd & West, 1401 Third St., 402 units
Escher, 418 Harrison St., 32 units
>> In a survey of Purdue students on housing, the report found:
88% said rent price was a deciding factor when choosing a place to live, down from 93% last year.
Of those who said they use some amount of personal funds to pay for at least a portion of their housing, those housing costs comprise an average of 49.76% of their income.
49% of respondents said that their current housing costs are higher than expected, down from 60% a year ago.
36% of student renters said they had stayed in the same home since starting their first semester, while 20% have moved three or more times since their start at Purdue.
65% said they believe their housing unit is either “probably” or “definitely” in need of renovation, while 64% of respondents rated the maintenance of their housing complex as “good” or “very good.”
45% of respondents who live off campus use a car to commute to campus, up from 34% last year. Of those who responded, 22% use the bus, down from 32% last year. Nearly all remaining respondents either bike or walk, the report said.
20% of respondents said they worked a job off campus, up from 14% a year ago.
To read the full report, here’s a link or download a copy below:
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THIS AND THAT/ OTHER READS …
CAUSE OF DEATH AFTER LPD FOOT PURSUIT IN SEPTEMBER RELEASED: Lennis Mitchell, a Lafayette man who collapsed in police custody and later died after his arrest in September, died from complications of cardiac arrest, Tippecanoe County Coroner Carrie Costello said in a release Wednesday.
Police reported that Mitchell, 36, was arrested on Sept. 22, after officers responded to a report of a battery in progress at a home in the 1000 block of South Fourth Street. Audio of a 911 call released by LPD indicated that someone reported that a woman had been on a porch calling across the street for someone to call police. Police say they arrested Mitchell on the porch of a nearby home after he ran through several yards, hopping fences as he went.
Mitchell was arrested for domestic battery, confinement, residential entry and resisting law enforcement, accused of breaking into the victim’s home, dragging her by the hair into a yard and beating her.
According to police accounts and from body-cam footage released Monday, Mitchell had complained while being handcuffed and when he was being questioned while seated in the back of a squad car that he was having trouble breathing. Police say officers followed department policy and started driving him to a hospital for a medical evaluation when he became unresponsive. Police say the officer pulled over, took Mitchell from the squad car and gave him CPR until an ambulance arrived. According to police, Mitchell was admitted to the hospital, where he was listed in critical condition. He died at the hospital six days later.
On Wednesday, Costello reported that whole-body imaging done during Mitchell’s hospital stay “revealed now evidence of significant trauma or injury.” Costello said police bodycam footage from the arrest “showed no evidence of chokeholds, use of electronic control devices (e.g., Taser), chemical agents or prolonged prone restraint.”
Costello said a forensic investigation turned up no evidence of contributing factors, though she said plausible causes for cardiac arrest included “ingestion of a substance not detectable on routine toxicology screening” or the effects of the strenuous foot pursuit. She reported that without conclusive evidence, though, the manner of death was classified as “undetermined.”
The Lafayette police released this video with the department’s account of what happened the day of the arrest.
BILL PUTS SYRINGE EXCHANGES ON NOTICE: With one of six counties in the state with an approved syringe exchange, this bill could loom large in Tippecanoe County. Indiana Capital Chronicle’s Tom Davies reported this week on Senate Bill 91, now being heard in the Indiana House: “For Indiana’s syringe exchange programs to survive, they might face new restrictions that public health advocates say will undercut efforts to help intravenous drug abusers kick their addictions. … House Public Health Committee Chair Rep. Brad Barrett, R-Richmond, was clear during a Tuesday meeting that tighter restrictions were needed in order for the Republican-dominated House to approve a bill allowing the county-run programs to continue past June 30. Restrictions inserted by the committee into Senate Bill 91 would require a participant to present identification proving residency in the exchange program’s region and limit the program operators to providing one sterile needle for each used one handed in. An amendment also shortened the Senate-endorsed bill’s extension of the programs from 10 years to two years, so its authorization would expire again in summer 2028.”
And for more background on the local program, here’s a BiL account from November 2024, when Gateway to Hope was approved again: “County’s syringe exchange survives another 2-1 vote, gets two more years. Vote falls in a familiar way, in Gateway to Hope’s favor.”
A BIG WIN, RDP: Before we get too far away from it, congratulations to Isabel Kaplan, one of the pioneers of high school girls wrestling in Greater Lafayette and now a regional champion in the boys 113-pound weight class. J&C reporter Ethan Hanson had the details on how the West Lafayette senior will be the last girl competing in ISHAA wrestling to achieve that feat.
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Tips, story ideas? I’m at davebangert1@gmail.com.
"[Former] Purdue President Mitch Daniels provided additional details to the University Senate on a range of initiatives at the West Lafayette campus designed to broaden Purdue's global impact and enhance educational opportunities for its students.
* Increasing success and value: Living on campus. Data shows that students living on campus have a retention rate that averaged 7.2 points greater over a 10-year period than their off-campus peers and a 10-year average GPA that is 0.15 points higher. Purdue plans to increase housing options so a majority of the student body has the opportunity to live on campus. New residence facilities would have classes taught in the residence halls, nearby faculty and adviser offices, and study areas."
This false promise was made 12 years ago.
On LinkedIn, Purdue posted/boasted that "Purdue University has achieved another historic milestone: ranked No. 1 globally among the world’s best managed universities." This was a selection by a little known group and it is extremely hard to understand how the university's management of enrollment and housing supports this. Story on Purdue News, 10/9/25. https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/2025/Q4/purdue-tops-list-of-the-worlds-25-best-managed-universities/