Housing in 2017: What Do College Students Want?

By Danni White on December 7, 2016

Renting or leasing living space to college students in almost any U.S. college city is a highly competitive, but extremely lucrative opportunity. If there is an institution of higher learning nearby, you will be sure to find a bevy of students who need housing or who want to move into good housing outside of the usual college dorm.

Besides that, competition is steep because independent landlords, property managers, and rental/leasing companies are using ads and other incentives to target college students and their parents with some very attractive deals.

Image via Pexels

So how can you compete in a highly competitive market, get a good return on your investment, and serve college students at the same time? The first step is to find out what college students are looking for when it comes to housing.

Here are the top three things college students think about when selecting a property, and you should take these things into consideration when developing a place that college students would love to rent.

1. Location

College students don’t look for housing in proximity to their school necessarily. They look for housing that is close enough to their school but also close to coffee shops, gyms, movie theaters, malls, sports clubs, bars, grocery stores, and other popular places where students frequent.

This is good thinking on the part of college students because many of them are away from home for the first time and many do not yet have a car of their own, so catching the bus, bicycling, or walking is necessary and the places they need to get to are better close by than far away.

Just as an example, I am thinking of the town in which the campus of SMU is located. While I don’t attend this school, I was driving through it to another event and along one side of the street are student houses/apartments presumably and on the other side are strip malls with an array of restaurants, coffee shops, and other stores where college students would be more likely to frequent.

So with that said, a good property location would be more attractive to college students if it were in this type of community than right across the street from the campus.

2. Quality

There is a certain image that some people have of college students that they are unkempt and sloven and that they don’t want or they don’t value quality fixtures and furnishings in their living space. Nothing could be further from the truth. Many college students are looking for high quality interior with simple, modern decorum. They aren’t quite looking for a mansion with six pool tables, but something as close as possible.

You need to decide how “ready” you are willing to make the place before advertising it to college students. For example, furniture and fixtures must go beyond the simple installation of the bed, closet, desk, chair and couch. Think about flooring, carpeting, bathroom finishes, kitchen fixtures and gadgets. Many students are willing to pay a couple bucks extra to have a flat screen TV, large refrigerator or even an independent washer and dryer. You don’t have to pay an arm and a leg for it, but including things like this in the apartment can impact how many students look at your place and then choose to rent or lease.

3. Affordability

Here’s the thing about rent costs: College students want to pay as low a cost as possible, but they do not want shabby living conditions. So if your apartments look cheap for the cheap price, you are least likely to attract college students. Many students go to college so they can get a good-paying job at the end of or during those four years. This translates into students normally not having a lot of money. However, many students have housing allowances or stipulations by certain programs where their housing is paid for them.

Additionally, students will be willing to opt to share a bedroom just to keep rent costs down between two or three people. This does not mean you have to decrease the price of the property, but you do want to keep this in mind when considering whether you will allow more than one tenant in the living space. If college students in your town are more likely to have one or two roommates, be sure to check with local laws about whether you can allow this. If so, it could provide a little extra income without putting in any extra effort into the property.

With thousands of young college students already looking for housing and many more who are returning to school due to the lack of jobs, ensuring that you are able to think like a college student especially when it comes to housing may provide a boost in your business every new school term and make students happy.

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