Very excited to make my first post. The community here is such a wealth of knowledge! I’m new to the investing side of real estate, but have been studying and analyzing my potential areas. Cheap houses in southern NH are hard to find, but one potential area I’m able to make numbers work is in a college town a bit north of me. 40% of the town rents, which is unusual as far as I can tell. The numbers also look promising in small multi family properties. With that, I guess my question is what considerations I should have potentially renting to college students? Is this not a big issue, or might I be getting into more situations I’ll need to navigate as a beginner? Is wear and tear really that much higher with students? Do lease lengths get difficult with the off semesters? Do students usually look to rent rooms or units as a group? Thanks for any advice! Dan Cayer

More wear and tear with students. search student rentals in the forums,you will learn alot! If you have a duplex though the one point I would. make is you should consider is that undergrads and families can not mix well in a duplex. Grad students, serious students maybe but the time of comings and goings in the house can be a bad mix if you have a young family and students. Also there is a season when students are looking for rentals, if you miss it, it can result in longer vacancies.

Daniel,

Most of the time, i have found, is that students will rent in a group. Check with your town how many non related people can live in a unit ( most of the times it is 4) but some places it is less. you can make more money with student rentals because you can charge by the room. as far as wear and tear, yes you will have some, i have a problem with some students right now with garbage outside the house, but other than that i have not had problems.. yet. you can usually rent the units on a yearly lease ( June to May ) and the time to start filling the leases for the next year is usually around Thanksgiving. as @Colleen F. mentioned, if you miss that certain time period and do not get it rented, you may be out a year with no rent or a semester if you are lucky. I also agree with her that you do not want to mix Family and Students in the same building. Hopefully the property is close enough to a campus that you would have no problems filling it with students.

Thank you both for the information! All great points and something to think about for sure. Regarding rentals to students, how often do you find that you’re actually dealing with the parents of the students, and how do you typically handle the lease differently?

Daniel, which town matters.  Why do I think you are talking about Hillsborough?  or possibly Henniker?

Do some searches in the forums for the town, I have a feeling that some of us have weighed in on Hillsborough in the past, and not in a good way.  If I'm off base, well, good.  But telling us which town will still be helpful.  There are a lot of rural towns north of you.

Daniel,

 In my case, i don't. I will tell you i have a PM manage my properties, but to my knowledge they have never gotten calls from parents. once the kids sign the lease, AND parents as co-signers, you are dealing with the students from that point on, they are the ones in the house.