Finding the Off-Campus Housing Fit

Thanksgiving break is an ideal time to discuss your college student's plans for living arrangements for the next academic year. So, I'm excited to present this guest blog post by Jackie Schwirian. Jackie is a Leasing Manager at one of the large, college student-focused apartment complexes in Stillwater, and she has some valuable insights to share with students and parents before they seek out off-campus housing.

While college life is filled with many new experiences for students, it’s also filled with many new responsibilities and decisions. For parents of college students, helping to choose a safe, reliable, and value-worthy off-campus home for their son/daughter to live can be a daunting process filled with many obstacles and hidden costs.

Attracted to Cheap

When students focus on “cheap,” safety and reliability are often left out-of-focus, leaving the student in disarray when problems arise. Before parents and their son/daughter decide on an apartment, the following questions should be considered:

• What happens when a landlord is not available if a maintenance problem arises?
• What if the landlord repeatedly comes into the apartment unannounced?
• What if the heating bill is well over your allotted budget for the winter months?
• What happens if the roommate(s) refuse to share the cost of the internet and cable TV bills?
• What if the roommate(s) refuse to pay his/her share of the rent?

Finding the Off-Campus Housing Fit

Safety and reliability are the most important, but helping your son/daughter find an apartment (and community) that fits their lifestyle are just as important. For example, some apartments cater to the full-time student with a heavy class load by offering study rooms; some do not. If specific housing options are not listed on the apartment’s website, students and their parent(s) could find a benefit to browsing social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to get an idea of what residents and leasing professionals are sharing about the apartment and community.

Wake-up Call

While each apartment is different, the management responsible for leasing the apartment(s)/property will likely stay the same. Oftentimes, websites and leasing professionals omit hidden costs such as utility charges, which some tenants wouldn’t necessarily consider when calculating the overall leasing costs.  Have your student take time to read the lease carefully and ask the leasing agent to go over the lease with your student. Oftentimes students come up with valuable questions when the lease is reviewed in detail with the leasing agent. 

• Before your son or daughter hears the words “sign here,” take time to research the safety, reliability, and convenience of an apartment community to maximize your student’s experience and put you and your student at ease with the next off-campus housing decision.

-Jackie Schwirian, Leasing & Marketing Manager, The Reserve on Perkins 

"Should my college student rent or own?"

Now, come on, his hardly seems like a legitimate question to ask when your child’s biggest windfall will come when he sells his textbooks at the end of the semester, but since this book addresses college parents it is definitely something to consider.

As I write this article, interest rates for homes are at all-time lows in fact, you will pay almost half as much interest on a home loan, 3.5%, as you will for a student loan, 6.8%, taken out at the same time. Not to mention the tax advantage of paying a mortgage versus paying rent. If we make some additional assumptions about the cost of renting being about the same as a mortgage payment, and about real estate appreciating at a modest 3% per year it doesn’t sound so crazy now, does it?

I would like to emphasize that I am looking at this issue from the perspective of a mid-western college town where you can still buy a tidy, two bedroom, one bath for $75,000.00 or even less if you are handy with a hammer. If your child is attending college in a location that affords you the opportunity to buy instead of rent, you may seriously consider it.

When you also consider the possibility of your child having a roommate to help pay the mortgage, or if you have other children who will attend the same college, you may be looking at an eight to twelve year, or longer, real estate investment for yourself instead of making someone else’s mortgage payment for them for the same amount of time.

If this idea has piqued your interest, I suggest doing some of your own number crunching and shopping while you visit your child throughout his freshman year. If you have never used Zillow.com, it is a great tool for comparing real estate in a specific area. Although you may consider buying instead of renting, unless you know the area well, a licensed real estate agent or Realtor is always a good person to consult before you make the leap. 

Luxury College Living

 These days, a number of real estate development companies are taking advantage of low interest rates and are building huge apartment complexes in college towns all across the country. These complexes offer amenities that most of our generation would love to have in our own homes. These are often fully furnished luxury apartments with all steel appliances, granite counter tops and deluxe clubhouses complete with pools, gyms, hot tubs and golf courses. While these obviously offer very high quality living experiences, it is important for you and your child to assess whether becoming accustomed to living in such housing will be sustainable after they graduate. Usually it’s not.