October 23rd, 2008 by AllStudentRentals.com

The most competitive time of the year is here again at Cornell, and it has nothing to do with prelims, externships or career fairs. Finally, house hunting season is upon us.

Much attention has been recently paid to the West Campus Residential Initiative, and there’s no doubt the housing overhaul was sorely needed. Still, all this back-patting has distracted us from the fact that West Campus hosts only 1,800 students, while over 50 percent of the University continues to live off campus.

With interest rates on student loans rising and families financially strapped, many students currently turn to off-campus housing as a way to cut costs. And it’s easy to see why. For the 2008-2009 academic year, a double room in any residence hall aside from the Townhouses will cost you $6,950, beginning in August and ending in May. When you subtract the weeks students are closed out of their dorms for winter break, that shared bedroom is costing you about $770 per month. Even in the cutthroat monopoly that is Collegetown, that price will get you some pretty sweet digs — if not Park Place, maybe a nice flat on Linden.

Yet in their rush to save money, many Cornellians end up leaving the dorms for sub-par housing, feeling swindled and saddled with 12-month leases. And for those freshmen unaware that the blood sport of lease-signing begins only a few short weeks after they move in on North, the Greek system can become their only option.

Living in a fraternity or sorority house can be a great experience, but spring rush comes right when students are feeling the pressure to find housing for next fall. West Campus may be great, but the attraction of free beer and (presumably) a bunch of other things can lead freshmen away from Keaton House and toward the hedonism of Greek living. By allowing rush to disrupt freshman year, Cornell is undermining its own Residential Initiative, interfering in the North Campus experience and reducing West Campus to a back-up, not a first choice.

If the University is unable to provide housing for over half its students, it should be willing to take responsibility for making sure rising sophomores are fully aware of their options. A forum should be established for students to post about their own living conditions, whether costs may be negotiable and when their landlords begin showing apartments for next year.

And at the very least, the University should back up its claimed desire to create inclusive communities in upperclassman dorms by finding a way to make those dorms cost competitive with off-campus alternatives. Otherwise, students who need savings the most will be the ones heading for the (East) hills and away from Cornell’s idyllic West Campus system.

Source: The Cornell Daily Sun

Remarks: Living off-campus has many advantages. Students can save money and have a more independent college experience. However, one of the main problems is finding the right apartment, house for rent, or student rental. That’s where AllStudentRentals.com comes into play. Our goal is to make the hunt for off-campus housing as easy and stress free as possible. Although, we currently do not have any listings in the Cornell area, we plan on expanding accross the nation as fast as possible so students nationwide can benefit from our services.

October 1st, 2008 by AllStudentRentals.com

The first week of my senior year was the most subdued New Student Week I have ever experienced. Oddly enough, it was also the first few days of living in my very own apartment. Woohoo? You see, now my time is spent having to actually cook (beyond Ramen and popcorn in my dorm or frat microwave, that is).

Why do we, Northwestern students, decide to live off campus? Because it’s cheaper or more convenient? So far, it’s seemed a hell of a lot less convenient: Apartments are farther away from class, foodless and you have to scrub your own shower.

It’s true: Living off campus adds a lot of unwelcome responsibility to the mix. “It’s harder to keep up with your chores and classes, [it] preps you for life,” said Vanessa Lee, a Weinberg senior. Cameron Gibson, a Communications junior, also has a hard time dealing with bills and chores, the “little stuff that [he’s] never had to worry about before.” As for myself, I have to admit, doing dishes, taking out the trash, furnishing your apartment, paying your cable, internet, utility bills… it’s all more overwhelming than you can imagine before move-in day. Laundry seemed like a pain in the ass in the dorms. But on your own, the responsibilities are like laundry on crack when everything else isn’t already taken care of for you.

But at Northwestern, where apartments are the antonym of dorms (and therefore the synonym of cool), moving out of university housing is just the way we roll. By senior or junior year, and sometimes as early as sophomore year, many of us find ourselves with our own pad west of Sheridan. “Once you’ve lived in a dorm or Greek house for two or three years, it’s time to move on,” said Lee.

Many people say it’s stifling to stay on campus beyond their sophomore year, and moving off campus is our way of declaring we’re ready to leave the babying environment of university housing. “There’s more freedom, more food choices” in living off campus, Gibson said.

Mark Underhill, Communications senior, who got his own apartment his sophomore year, has found that living in the real world lends itself to new levels of social liberation. “There’s no RA or security guard, less authority. My friends and I just wanted to get out of the dorms - [it] makes throwing parties easier, too.” It’s true: When you have a house or apartment to yourself, your social life can finally be in tune with your personality without the pesky constraints of university housing rules.

Maybe some of us move off campus because we want to assert that we’re freewheeling adults, under the ruse that it’s more “convenient.” But signing an apartment lease isn’t the key to maturity. Rather, it’s the experience of actually living on your own that turns you into an adult, whether you’re ready for it or not. Living off campus might not be more convenient, but maybe our compulsion to assert our independence ends up being good for us. If college is life on training wheels, living off campus is a bike with one of the training wheels screwed off. Then you graduate, and you hope that you have enough balance to ride it out.

Source: NorthByNorthwestern.com

Remarks: This article highlights what could be considered the most important motivation for most students to leave the confines of on-campus housing: Freedom. Living off-campus provides students the opportunity to take on some responsibility, to live whatever lifestyle they choose, without worrying about the repricussions often associated with on-campus housing. It is an important step for any student to take, and it can be a daunting and intimidating task. That is why AllStudentRentals.com allows potential student renters to search apartments and houses with dozens of different filtering options, making the search that much easier. Finding an off-campus apartment should be an exciting experience, and AllStudentRentals is dedicated to making it so, providing a site where students can find exactly what they need in a rental as well as valuable information for those who have never rented before.

October 1st, 2008 by AllStudentRentals.com

EUGENE — As classes start today, the University of Oregon is bracing for an extra-large freshman class by housing 400 new students in off-campus apartments, opening 3,700 more seats in classes and hiring more temporary faculty.

The additional students are stretching campus resources and sparking a faculty debate about how big the 20,000-student university should grow.

“We’re trying to fit them all in,” Scott Coltrane, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, said Friday. “We are bursting at the seams, but so far we are doing OK.”

Like many freshmen who moved into off-campus Stadium Park apartments last week, Megan Johnson was disappointed at first to miss out on the traditional dorm experience — until she saw her spacious new pad.

The 18-year-old from the Tacoma area has her own room with a full-sized bed and large closet, a bathroom she shares with only one other student, a kitchen and a washer and dryer in a four-bedroom suite. The complex also has a pool, a sand volleyball pit, a fitness room, even a tanning bed.

“It’s like the luxury dorm,” she said, as she unpacked a box of shoes. “People are really jealous of the Stadium Park kids.”

She and other freshmen living in the apartments near Autzen Stadium said they don’t mind commuting to campus if it means they don’t have to share a cramped dorm room with a roommate and tromp down the hall to a communal bathroom.

But with 4,100 freshmen this year — at least 400 more than last year — university leaders say it will be a challenge to connect the off-campus freshmen to the academic and social life on campus.

Both Oregon State University in Corvallis and Portland State University also are expecting slight increases in freshmen this fall. Oregon State has enough dorm beds, but PSU has a waiting list.

UO is trying to make the off-campus apartment experience as much like living in dorms as possible. Eight staff members — two directors and six assistants — live there to supervise and support students. But the apartments are more private than dorm rooms and don’t have many large common areas, making oversight harder.

“The majority of our programming is geared toward getting them to come to campus, because that’s where the community is going to be,” said Robin Holmes, vice president for student affairs.

Still, she added, “We have to make sure that area feels like home to them.”

The university’s College of Arts and Sciences hired 60 new graduate students and 20 new temporary faculty to teach additional sections, labs and classes. That’s in addition to 26 new permanent tenure-track faculty.

All the available classroom and lab space is being used, and more classes are being offered in the early morning and in the evening. The large freshman class will be even harder to accommodate as the students advance and need to take more small seminar classes, Coltrane said.

The bigger question facing faculty: What is the university’s optimum size? The answer will help determine how many tenure-track faculty will be hired in the future.

Professors are weighing the opportunity for growth in student programs and research with the desire to retain the more intimate feel of a smaller campus, Coltrane said.

“There is recognition that we will grow a bit but keep it human-scale,” he said. “What that means, I’m not sure. And that’s what the debate is about.”

About 800 students who missed the March 31 priority housing deadline were initially denied campus housing. About half of them expressed interest in the off-campus apartments, and the university did not track what happened to the other half, Holmes said. Some chose to attend another college where they could live on campus, and others may have found other housing in Eugene, she said.

James Carroll, a UO freshman from Los Angeles, was considering attending a California State University campus, where he could live in a dorm, until he found out he got a spot in an off-campus apartment.

“I can’t imagine moving in here today without a place to live,” he said.

Source: OregonLive.com

Remarks: We are seeing a developing trend where extra large freshmen classes are putting strain on university housing programs that are already suffering as a result of a gradual increase in the average number of college freshmen over the last several decades. While this might spell disaster for many campuses, it is an excellent opportunity for property owners and managers in many college communities. The demand for off-campus housing is growing at a rapid rate, and the importance of finding a comprehensive listing service is increasing right along with it. AllStudentRentals.com provides property managers with everything they need to make their properties available to a large number of potential renters, and it offers performance-based, competitive pricing, ensuring that each property owner is getting the most value for their investment.

October 1st, 2008 by AllStudentRentals.com

WASHINGTON  —  Georgetown University administrators have shut down a campus dining hall after 41 students complained of nausea and vomiting, myfoxdc.com reported Wednesday.

Of those 41 students, 25 were treated for possible food poisoning.

Todd Olson, vice president for student affairs, said in an e-mail to the university community Wednesday morning that the students were being treated at Georgetown University Hospital for vomiting and diarrhea. He says most of them reported having eaten Tuesday at O’Donovan Dining Hall, known as Leo’s.

The dining hall has been closed for breakfast and lunch, with those services temporarily relocated to other locations.

Although the students ate at the same dining hall, they did not all eat the same types of food, according to myfoxdc.com.

Source: FoxNews.com

Remarks: While this is certainly an unpleasant article, it provides just one more reason why living off-campus can have its benefits. Among them, choosing what you eat and don’t eat, and having the freedom to do so. AllStudentRentals.com provides a place for students to find apartments and houses where they are free from the confines of the on-campus dorm, and in this case, the potential dangers of the dining hall.

October 1st, 2008 by AllStudentRentals.com

Boston University released its Annual Security Report online yesterday, providing three years of statistics on reported crimes occurring on- and off-campus. The report showed a drop in reported on-campus crimes — from 138 in 2006 to 74 in 2007 — but the University experienced small increases in several areas, including overall reported off-campus crimes, reported off-campus burglaries, and forcible sex offenses.

The number of reported off-campus burglaries increased from 4 to 9, and the number of all reported off-campus crimes increased from 4 to 14. On-campus burglaries fell from 117 to 62. Forcible sex offenses on campus rose from three to seven, five of which were said to have taken place in the dormitories.

Peter Fiedler, the University’s vice president for administrative services, notes that the statistics reflect the number of incidents reported to the BUPD, not the number of prosecutable incidents that take place in a calendar year, and that they do not include the results of follow-up investigations. He attributed the overall drop in reported incidents to the wider use of the CompStat crime analysis system, which BU Police Chief Thomas Robbins implemented when he came to BU in 2006.

“With the implementation of the CompStat model comes an increased emphasis on crime reporting,” says Robbins. “In order to effect change and reduce crime, the police need to gather timely information on crime and related incidents from the community. There has been a big push to get the word out to the community to report incidents to the police department. Some of this uptick in crimes reported can probably be attributed to these efforts.”

Fiedler says the new system has enabled the University to better study crime statistics on all BU properties. “It has allowed us to review all kinds of crimes,” he says, “and to look at their frequency from week to week or month to month and to then reposition our police officers in the most effective manner.”

The University reported a decrease in liquor and drug violation arrests; the number of liquor law violation arrests dropped from 95 to 21, and the drug law violation arrests fell from 56 to 10 — a change that Fiedler attributes to the drug and alcohol task force established by David McBride, the director of Student Health Services, when he came to BU in 2006.

“Previously, drug and alcohol education was not as focused and closely monitored as it is now,” Fiedler says. “Now, if a student is transported for medical care due to inappropriate use of alcohol or drugs, he or she receives follow-up care from a Student Health Services behavioral medicine social worker. That’s probably why we’re seeing the drop from 2006.”

Looking ahead, Fiedler and Robbins identify bicycle and pedestrian safety, increased communication between students and the BUPD, and a reduction in on-campus larceny as priorities for the coming year. Fiedler is currently working with other administrators on educational initiatives for bicyclists and drivers, and Robbins plans to continue the town hall meetings he held with students last year.

“The area that I think most needs improvement is our ability to connect with the University as a whole for information sharing,” Robbins says. “The best thing we can do as a department is get a free information flow, so we can track crime patterns and trends within the University. I’d like people to feel comfortable communicating with department members when they see them on the street.”

Source: BU Today-Campus Life

Remarks: It is true that living off-campus can be more dangerous than living on-campus, but it almost always dependent on where you choose to live off-campus. Every city has areas that are more prone to certain kinds of crime, and the best way to avoid these potential dangers is to be acutely aware of where you will be living when you move off-campus. AllStudentRentals.com not only provides a large volume of rental listings that cover every section of each university community, it also provides a mapping feature that allows potential student renters to find the specific location of each rental before making any commitment, facilitating renting areas that are considered more safe. This feature can also be used to gauge the distance from each rental to important locations like University Police, or areas of town with less concentrated crime statistics (these can be obtained from university or local police or many university affiliates).

October 1st, 2008 by AllStudentRentals.com

When Jessica Hulings finally took a look around in the middle of moving in back in August, all of a sudden it looked like her new apartment had shrunk.

“When we saw the apartment for the first time it was huge, but when we moved in all the furniture it wasn’t as big as we expected,” Hulings (sophomore-mechanical engineering) said. “We definitely overestimated the space.”

Hulings’ roommate, Lyndsay Marks (sophomore-communication sciences and disorders) suddenly realized that there was only one bathroom.

“We had five girls … and there was only one bathroom,” Marks said. “I thought it wasn’t going to work out.”

Schuyler Merritt (sophomore-hotel, restaurant and institutional management) remembers when more than 150 people were walking in and out of her apartment during a party the first weekend of the semester.

“It was crazy,” Merritt said. “Our apartment isn’t even that big and we didn’t have enough toilet paper.”

These are just a couple of the situations that Hulings, Marks and Merritt, also known as the “Sisterhood of Keller St,” have experienced after they made the decision to move into an apartment for the first time this fall.

While there are many housing options in State College, the push to move out of first-year dorm rooms and into a multi-person apartment has been described by the “sisterhood” as a important decision that requires total dedication.

“You better make sure that it’s what you want to do,” Merritt said.

After living in East and Pollock Halls during their freshman year and during summer sessions, the “sisterhood” decided dorm life wasn’t for them and began looking into apartments.

The roommates said their experience living in dorms was difficult because it was hard for them to meet new people.

“We saw people on our floor, like once every two months during those mandatory RA meetings,” Marks said. “Here we have much more consistent friends, because we see our neighbors more.”

At that moment, two male neighbors walked into the apartment and requested to borrow some cups.

“Don’t pay attention to them,” Hulings said jokingly. “They’re just jerks.”

When the decision was made to move in together, the challenges were finding a place to live, locating roommates to help defray the costs and having to convince their parents.

Merritt said she heard about the opening of the apartment that they currently live in from her brother, who also attended Penn State.

“We were scrambling to find places and we were lucky that this one opened up,” Merritt said.

However, the process isn’t always this smooth. Doreen Strauss, president of the Off-Campus Student Union (OCSU), said the No. 1 issue it has is helping students find a place to live in a way that provides them with the best possible living situation.

“A lot of students don’t realize that they have rights and that they don’t have to settle for the conditions that they are in,” Strauss said. “OSCU helps with finding a place to live and our advisers have a wealth of experience.”

Marks said that next step was to convince her parents how important it was to apply for an apartment early.

“I knew some people who didn’t get dorms, and I didn’t want to get stuck without a place to live,” she said. Trying to beat the rush, Marks, Merritt and Hulings signed their lease without the two other roommate spots filled.

Once the parents were convinced, the next task became finding two more roommates. Some early options fell through, and the girls began posting on bulletin boards, telling friends and even posting on Facebook.com.

“We were determined,” Merritt said. “We told ourselves that we will find roommates.”

Eventually, they found two more girls. Upon moving in this fall, Marks, Merritt and Hulings noticed several differences in living immediately. For example, Merritt was happy about not having a bed that doubled as a table.

Marks was glad not to have to wear shoes to shower and Hulings was excited her wardrobe quadrupled because all of the girls wore the same size.

“I was nervous at first about getting along, but so far, so good,” Merritt said.

Even though making stylistic choices between five girls would appear a difficult process, the Keller Street sisters said it was easy to decorate and split the costs of maintaining an apartment.

“We all brought stuff that we just had back home for our apartment,” Hulings said. “It worked out really well.”

When it came time to divide up the utility costs, Marks said there was no quibbling over how much each roommate had to pay.

“We just split everything by five,” Marks said. “We also have a board that people can write how much they owe someone.” Currently, one of the roommates is in debt by about $20.

However, if a person is having trouble with their roommates, Strauss says it’s not as easy to get the conflict resolved off-campus as it is in the dorms.

“If a person is really struggling we can help them find another place to live, but we don’t deal with personal issues,” Strauss said.

“We want students to know that we are here for them and that we want to help them.”

The roommates said that having different schedules has helped to keep the living situation in balance so far. Everyone has different times to use the bathroom. On weeknights, however, the roommates have club meetings at roughly the same time and come together to watch the same TV shows.

“I know it sounds like we are lying about getting along all the time. But we really do, and I am glad we made this decision,” Merritt said. “Come back in the next couple of months and that may change.”

Source: The Daily Collegian Online

Remarks: This article highlights the importance of finding roommates who have a similar mindsite. Living off-campus does have its challenges, however, the goal of AllStudentRentals.com is to minimize these common obstacles that everyone encounters. Our comprehensive rental listing allows students to find the perfect situation for their living needs, including the specific number of bedrooms/bathrooms, and overall cost. Our Roomate Finder options also allows renters to post vacant rooms in houses and to search for roommates based on their needs. It is stated very simply above that the hardest task that the Off-Campus Student Union faces is finding students a place to live that provides the best possible living situation. Our goal is to partner with campuses nationwide in order to make this process that much easier and provide student renters with everything they need.

October 1st, 2008 by AllStudentRentals.com

IRVINE, CA-The University of California at Irvine has kicked off construction of a new $221 million, 1,763-bed project that is being developed for the university by American Campus Communities of Austin, TX. The new development “will allow UC Irvine to lead the University of California system in the percentage of student population housed on campus,” according to a statement by the university. The project, which is scheduled to open in the fall of 2010 will enable UCI to move closer to its 50% on-campus housing goal.

The new housing is the third project at UCI for American Campus Communities, which developed and now manages two phases of housing totaling 3,052 beds. One project is Vista del Campo, which opened in 2004; the other is Vista del Campo Norte, which opened in 2006.

Wendell Brase, administrative and business services vice chancellor for UCI, says that the university believes the three combined phases of UCI’s student housing “represent the largest privatized student housing project in the US whether measured by residents, dollars or square feet.” A chief goal of the projects is “transforming commuters into residents,” Brase says.

The project was designed to meet Gold LEED certification and to promote the use of public transportation, bicycles and walkways. The project will be a part of UCI’s green building education program that includes sustainable curriculum and building tours.

KTGY Group Inc. Architecture and Planning of Irvine is the architect for the new project, as well as for the Vista del Campo and Vista del Campo Norte projects, according to a previous GlobeSt.com report on the student housing. Dan McAllister, a KTGY principal and lead designer on the project, noted in the previous report that KTGY has considerable experience in designing for college campuses as well as for green buildings in general and LEED-certified buildings specifically.

The new 1,763-bed project is composed of a 1,198-bed undergraduate complex and a 562-bed graduate complex. The undergraduate housing features three-story townhome units of two and four bedrooms, with private bedrooms throughout.

The 562-bed graduate complex features studios as well as units of one and two bedrooms. Both the graduate and the undergraduate housing features a host of amenities. The project will accommodate occasional student residential car use, although the university is emphasizing an on-campus transportation system comprising shuttles, personal and rental bicycles, a car-sharing program and walking.

Source: Globest.com

Remarks: UC Irvine is spending a large volume of money in order to encourage students to live closer to campus and curb its image as a commuter school. If you are a student at UC Irvine, then this development will probably be beneficial. However, if you are a property owner in Irvine and the surrounding area, this new project will eventually take potential renters out of the marketplace. American Campus Communities is a large scale company with more than $150M in revenue in 2007. In order to compete with a company of this size, property managers need an effective way to market themselves to a large group of available renters. Listing on AllStudentRentals.com is an inexpensive, efficient, and convenient way to accomplish this goal and ensure that school-sponsored building projects won’t hurt your bottom line.

September 29th, 2008 by AllStudentRentals.com

Ohio State’s campus is undergoing a major makeover: the renovation of Thompson Library, the construction of the Lane Avenue parking garage and a new student union set to open in 2010.

The university is also embarking on a $250 million dorm renovation to take place between 2009 and 2012.

According to the university registrar’s office, students living in university housing are likely to maintain higher grade point averages and graduate sooner.

The Office of Student Life has invested $150 million in university housing during the last 15 years to improve campus housing, and have plans to invest more to revamp eight student housing facilities including Lincoln Tower, Jones Tower and the south towers.

“The buildings, especially on south campus, were built in a different era,” said Ruth Gerstner, from the Office of Student Life. “We want to be able to provide students with more privacy and a modern living space.”

Incoming students ranked the quality of residence halls as very important, but give OSU housing facilities a poor rating, according to a survey by the Office of Student Life.

Sophomore roommates Jen Coleman and Malory Weber agree. Coleman said she prefers her current living space in Drackett Tower to her freshman housing on south campus.

“There were things that needed improvement,” Coleman said of her freshman dorm. “The bathrooms weren’t big enough for all the girls and there wasn’t much privacy.”

Weber said she enjoys the convenience of sharing a bathroom with only one other person, and both agree they have more privacy living in Drackett Tower.

By 2012 there will be 1,000 additional beds on campus, 90 percent of residence hall spaces will be of double or single occupancy, 81 percent of residence halls will be air-conditioned and 88 percent will offer private or semi-private bathroom areas. The Office of Student Life will have invest $30 million in standard renewal projects in other residence halls.

“University housing is at 100 percent capacity,” Gerstner said. “We are trying to create a good living environment for students, one that is less crowded.”

Some students will experience changes as early as 2010. Renovation in Lincoln Tower will begin in April, and by fall 2010 floors one through 15 will be converted from offices to living space. Renovations in Jones Tower will begin July and will be completed fall 2010.

The south towers will receive renovations including air-conditioning units and conversion of community bathrooms to private bathrooms. Renovation on the south towers will begin June 2010 and will continue until August 2012. There will also be renovation in the Hall Complex with an addition of 410 beds.

During remodeling, housing facilities will need to be shut down. Arrangements have been made so the renovation process can run as smoothly for students as possible, Gerstner said. Lincoln Tower’s new 15 floors of living space will accommodate students unable to live in residence halls under renovation.

To pay for the multi-million dollar renovation project, student room and board fees will annually increase over the next several years. The Office of Student Life is seeking funds that will help limit the fee increase.

Source: The Lantern - The Student Voice of Ohio State University

Remarks: I found this article to be interesting because it shows that improvements are being made to the on campus housing as well. Dorms are typically thought of as little cubicals with no privacy or kitchen. But over at Ohio State University, they are looking to change this. The dorms are being upgraded and they will be better than ever when construction is complete. If you are a student at Ohio State, we definately recommend you check these dorms out!

September 10th, 2008 by AllStudentRentals.com

Builders and developers nationwide are increasingly targeting universities to profit from a fast-selling college product: off-campus housing.

By focusing their efforts on selling upscale, mixed-use apartments to the general public, developers have capitalized off the growing demand created by a record number of students enrolling at universities across the country.

With the housing market buckled under a stifling economy, developers are striving to attract students with high-class features. One such housing complex near U. Penn, the Radian, opened its doors at 39th and Walnut streets last week.

At upscale off-campus apartments nationwide, developers say greater luxuries and more freedoms are the biggest selling points. Other luxury complexes that have been constructed near U. Penn’s campus in recent years are the Hub at 40th and Chestnut streets and Domus at 34th and Chestnut streets.

That trend is extending nationwide: American Campus Communities, Inc. recently finished a large-scale off-campus development at Arizona State U.

When the smoke settled, Arizona students were introduced to the Vista Del Sol, a $130 million, resort-like development that features an outdoor swimming pool, fitness center and theater.

“The generation we see today is accustomed to having more privacy and more amenities than most on-campus housing has to offer,” said Jason Wills, senior vice-president of development for ACCI. Wills said the company is in the process of negotiating a 1,000-bed project for Boise State U. in Idaho.

“It really comes down to the student making a consumer-based decision,” Wills said.

Steve Brown’s Lucky apartment complex in Madison, Wis. - near U. Wisconsin - also opened in August.

The complex contains two floors of retail space and apartments include features such as suede couches, designer chairs and dishwashers.

Brown - who has been in the business since 1980 - said more students have become open to the option of living off-campus.

“Each market is different, and in our case, it was a complicated partnership between the public sectors and private sectors that made this happen,” Brown said of the agreement to build the 1.4 million-square-foot complex.

About 90 percent of the residents who live in Lucky are U. Wisconsin students.

While many developers rush to build upscale complexes near universities, Inland American Communities Group - developer of the Radian apartments - was invited to submit a bid to build the off-campus facility on land leased by the University, said Penn Facilities spokesman Tony Sorrentino.

The Radian is still having work done on its retail component, but its apartments are 100-percent leased.

“Our communities provide new, high-quality housing to meet the demand for off-campus living among the student population across the country,” Inland Vice-President of Marketing Rachel Kihn said in an e-mail.

“Students are interested in off-campus living that offers the best experience for the best value, based on the amenities, technology and resident services being offered,” Kihn said.

Source: KnowledgePlex

Remarks: Off-campus housing is a great market for developers right now and will continue into the future. Our goal at AllStudentRentals.com is to help these developers lease their student housing complexes after they are built. We are working on partnering with multiple student REIT’s which will be a mutually beneficial relationship.

August 21st, 2008 by AllStudentRentals.com

Although the spring semester is still young, the time is fast approaching for students to set up their housing arrangements for next year. Some of you reading this are committed to staying on campus, but let me introduce you to the benefits of getting out of the dorms.
As you may be able to tell from the title, most of my argument focuses on money. There’s no way around it; living on campus is expensive. After factoring in rate increases, the average room is likely to cost nearly $6,000 next year and the average meal plan well over $4,000, for a grand total of more than $10,000. Conceivably, you can halve that cost by going off-campus.

Let me start with room costs. Troy is not New York City. You can find great apartments to rent in this city for about $300 a month for a multiple-person apartment, excluding utilities. Speaking of which, utilities aren’t bad either, at $75 to $100 a month. Rent at $375 a month, for 12 months, comes out to $4,500 on the year. That’s roughly $1,500 dollars that you keep, but that’s not all. Yes, you will probably have to pay for the whole year, but then you have a place to stay in the area for the summer, and you can move in and out on your own schedule.

In renting, however, there are a few things you need to watch out for. You will need to make sure that your landlord is reputable, and ensure that you understand all of the terms of a lease before you sign it. I can’t stress this part enough.

Food is even more of a steal. Once you get set up with pots, plates, and utensils, I’ve found that you can eat very well on $600 for the semester, but that number is more subject to your own cooking and eating preferences. Compare that to over $2,000 per semester for a meal plan, and you’re saving almost $3,000. Sure, you do have to buy the food, cook it, and clean up after yourself, but you get to eat the food that you want to eat and you aren’t constrained by the dining hall’s hours.

Of course, with all this newfound financial freedom comes a bit of responsibility. You have to pay the bills, and you have to pay them on time. You have to cook for yourself. But face it, you will most likely be doing these things after college anyway. If college is about challenging yourself and trying new things in and out of the classroom, this is the perfect opportunity. Learn how to cook now before you get out of school. Figure out how to pay bills and balance a checkbook. Take the difficult path for a change instead of the easy way out. We all can’t live with our parents forever. Why not build the skills now while you’re still in the learning environment.

Sources: PolytechnicOnline

Remarks: This article was great because it shows how living off campus really can save you money. From the housing cost and food you can save thousands every year by simply getting your own place.