The Eds & Meds Advantage: Why Pennsylvania's Economy Is Built for Long-Term Investors
Every real estate investor knows that rental demand follows jobs. What fewer investors think carefully about is what kind of jobs — because not all employment is created equal when it comes to housing stability.
Our target Pennsylvania markets are anchored by what urban economists call the "Eds & Meds" sector: education and healthcare. It's not a flashy story, but it's one of the most durable foundations a rental market can have.
The anchor institutions
The markets we invest in are home to some of the most significant institutions in the region:
- Major research universities — globally ranked programs in computer science, engineering, medicine, and business that produce a steady pipeline of talent
- Large hospital networks — among the largest employers in the state, with tens of thousands of staff across dozens of hospitals and hundreds of outpatient facilities
- Additional universities and colleges that add further employment and student-adjacent housing demand
Together, these institutions employ well over 100,000 people in the metro — and that number grows year over year regardless of what the broader economy is doing.
Why this matters for rental demand
Healthcare workers and university employees share a few key characteristics that make them ideal tenants:
Stable employment. Hospitals don't downsize during recessions — they get busier. University enrollment tracks long-term demographic trends, not quarterly earnings. These jobs don't evaporate in downturns.
Geographic anchoring. A surgeon or a professor can't work remotely and can't move their employer to a lower-cost city. They live where the institution is. This creates durable, location-specific rental demand that doesn't respond to national economic cycles the way finance or tech employment does.
Income range. Eds & Meds jobs span every income level — from first-year medical residents to tenured faculty to hospital administrators. This breadth supports demand across the full rental spectrum, from workforce housing to professional apartments.
Pennsylvania vs. tech-dependent markets
Compare our markets to a place like Austin or Phoenix, where explosive job growth has been driven primarily by tech sector expansion and relocation incentives. Those markets can add 30,000 jobs in a good year — and lose 15,000 in a correction.
Pennsylvania's job growth is slower and less dramatic. But it's also more predictable. Our target metro has added 15,000–20,000 jobs per year consistently over the last several years, with the healthcare and education sectors as the primary driver.
For a real estate investor with a 5–10 year hold horizon, predictability beats peak growth. You want a market where you can model vacancy conservatively and have confidence the assumptions hold.
The innovation effect
One under-appreciated dynamic in our markets is the long-term impact of university-driven AI and robotics research. The region is now home to one of the higher concentrations of AI researchers and engineers in the country, with autonomous-vehicle and AI companies establishing significant local footprints.
These companies create high-income, educated renters who may not want to own but can afford top-of-market rents. They also tend to be in the region specifically because of the university talent pipeline — meaning the demand is anchored, not footloose.
The bottom line
When we underwrote our commitment to Pennsylvania, the Eds & Meds foundation was a central part of the thesis. It's not the most exciting headline, but it's the kind of structural demand driver that lets you underwrite conservatively and still generate solid returns.
Markets built on tourism, retail, or single-industry employers carry embedded volatility that most projections underweight. Our anchor institutions have been operating for over a century and have every incentive to keep growing.
That's the kind of foundation we want underneath our investments.