Rental Property Investor · MI · Member since 2018 · 51 posts · 64 votes
We are down to the wire here trying to find college students for our rental that we purchased during COVID. Many places are still available near campus and with the end of August nearing and our money running out with the rehab.... it’s not looking promising.
Has anyone had a luck pivoting on college rentals in a very “college” market area? What strategies have you used to get renters in while other houses sit vacant?
Rental Property Investor · Nashua, NH · Member since 2014 · 598 posts · 477 votes
6y
This feels like a highly local situation. Was pouring over dozens of similar threads over the last couple months in prep for turning over a college rental myself in the middle of COVIDness, which actually happened just this week in a manner faster and with more demand than I have ever seen before (local university cut on-campus occupancy by 50% and pushed students off campus).
Outside of traditional students, I’ve also seen strong demands this year from folks with kids looking to get settled in prior to start of school in September. In 15+ years self-leasing proprieties I’ve always found strong demand through end of September here in the northeast USA, with a rapid drop-off in October/November and a black hole from December - March. Given that 4 month dead zone, it’s often in the best interest of northern state PMs to do anything/everything possible to fill a space prior to the October cold snap drop-off.
One the most overlooked things that most PMs/leasing agents do when renting out a space is to go generic: posting ads on CraigsList, newspapers, and national listing sites instead of investing the time at the start to think more about what their ideal renter looks like, where they live/work/play, and going after them by advertising where they are, which could be specific workplaces, housing intermediaries assisting folks trying to get back on their feet while providing guaranteed rental income to owners.
Investor · Poway, CA · Member since 2015 · 7k+ posts · 8k+ votes
6y
My child is an incoming freshman at UC Santa Barbara. The school Covid dorm policy is one per room. The dorm rooms were originally designed for 2 or 3. There is only a 3% tradition class expectation, most classes will be online learning. However, the dorm demand due to the reduced supply was high enough that there was a lottery for dorm rooms. The lottery was ~1 week ago. We were fortunate to get a dorm room.
The moment that the lottery notifications were sent, there was a rush for Isle Vista (the area near UCSB) units. Prior to the lottery, there were many vacancies.
So …
Do you know what percentage of classes will be traditional?
Do you know what the dorm room policy is (one per room, standard occupancy, other)? Have the dorms already been allocated? if they have not been allocated, when will they be allocated?
It could be that everyone is waiting to see if they can get a dorm room. If some of them do not get a dorm room, there could be a demand that is not currently present.
I would start by learning the local university's Covid housing policies if you do not already know them.
I would be leery of starting an STR at this time. Ours had regulations banning us from renting it for a few months (lost ~$60K in rents). In addition, there is not much traveling going on at this time. I recently took 2 flights on Delta. Both were at most 25% full.
Winter Springs, FL · Member since 2018 · 14 posts · 9 votes
6y
@Kelsey Folger
We own a rental in Tallahassee, Florida. That's a huge college town. We found a FSUCraigslist page on Facebook and posted the property there. But we had way more success with posting it on Zillow and the MLS through a realtor. Our property is fully furnished so that was a big plus for most students. If you furnish the place your odds increase significantly over other rentals. IKEA can be inexpensive for bedroom/dining furniture and Big Lots for living rooms or you can purchase used furniture from several sites/apps. I also hired a realtor to show the unit because I am not local. 
Real Estate Agent · Santa Barbara, CA · Member since 2016 · 518 posts · 283 votes
6y
@Dan Heuschele the private market of Isla vista is having a easy time getting units filled. All the student housing owners I’ve talked to are pretty much fully leased for the fall even though UCSB and SBCC are online. College students still want to party. I’ve even heard of students from out of town schools moving to IV since there campus’s are online. A few months ago I would of guessed Isla Vista would have been a ghost town. Crazy times.
Rental Property Investor · Aurora, CO · Member since 2019 · 34 posts · 33 votes
6y
@Kelsey Folger
I also have student rentals. I just purchased some more in July. I changed to having the tenants cover the utilities and lowered the price. For the first year, I just don’t want to lose money. We will get the rents adjusted after Covid. Most important to me was to not have them vacant with me paying the utilities as well.
Investor · Narragansett, RI · Member since 2013 · 8k+ posts · 4k+ votes
6y
@Kelsey Folger that isn't a great listing. There are two pictures of one bedroom and no picture of living room or other 2 or 3 bedrooms. When students are sharing they want equal bedroom space so they want to see all the bedrooms and common space. no outdoor/backyard picture. no laundry area pic. You waste a picture on a shelf and the kitchen sink? Rehab issues is there really no mirror above the bathroom sink? No closet doors? Not sure your problem is covid.
A couple of points on renting -some places you can pay to rent furniture if you want a furnished listing, Do this if you are actually in a good area for an airbnb or short term furnished listing say for medical professionals.
Someone suggested going section 8, that isn't a one year thing so if you do it keep that in mind. And if you don't have the time to manage it don't rent by the room.
Rental Property Investor · MI · Member since 2018 · 51 posts · 64 votes
6y
@Storm S. That’s interesting! Maybe I should add that to our listing 😂 “school get cancelled but it’s a great time to party...at someone else’s apartment!”
@Kelsey Folger that isn't a great listing. There are two pictures of one bedroom and no picture of living room or other 2 or 3 bedrooms. When students are sharing they want equal bedroom space so they want to see all the bedrooms and common space. no outdoor/backyard picture. no laundry area pic. You waste a picture on a shelf and the kitchen sink? Rehab issues is there really no mirror above the bathroom sink? No closet doors? Not sure your problem is covid.
A couple of points on renting -some places you can pay to rent furniture if you want a furnished listing, Do this if you are actually in a good area for an airbnb or short term furnished listing say for medical professionals.
Someone suggested going section 8, that isn't a one year thing so if you do it keep that in mind. And if you don't have the time to manage it don't rent by the room.
Hope that helps.
Thank you for your honest advice. At the time of photos (a few days ago) we were still finishing up the rehab so I took pictures of what was available at the time (there was no mirror in bathroom, the fridge and oven were on deck due to flooring installation, etc). I can see why students would want pictures of all the bedrooms, not just the best one. I will work on updating our listing to better reflect a "big picture" of the property instead of just the highlights. Thank you for taking the time to look at the listing and give feedback on it. I appreciate your candidness.
Realtor · London Ontario, Canada · Member since 2020 · 14 posts · 2 votes
6y
This is a concern in London, Ontario where I do most of my business. We have two large post-secondary schools in a relatively small city (under 400,000 total population) and this has concerned a lot of the investors I work with in the area.
Rental Property Investor · MI · Member since 2018 · 51 posts · 64 votes
6y
Originally posted by @Account Closed:
The best internet advertising we use for renting units is zillow.com. I think it costs $6 per week for each rental unit and we get 6 to 10 leads for each unit every day.
Thanks for the advice! We have a free listing there now, maybe I should switch to the paid version.
Rental Property Investor · MI · Member since 2018 · 51 posts · 64 votes
6y
Thank you, this makes me feel a bit better! We went into this deal with less reserves than we would have liked... We closed with cash instead of a mortgage because the financing was taking too long. I really hope the market starts to look up in the long run, and that we didn't buy a college rental in the "end of an era" of traditional, in-person classes. Only time will tell, we're just trying to avoid absolutely going broke this first year.
Rental Property Investor · MI · Member since 2018 · 51 posts · 64 votes
6y
@Kelsey Folger it looks like we are finally there! What seems to have worked is posting on Facebook Marketplace and the Fb groups popular in that city. I had to continually drop the price until I got around 5 inquires per day.
When we bought it we planned on $1500-2000 per month per unit... And the property manager is signing a lease tomorrow for $1,100 per month per unit. Not exactly what we were aiming for but I’m so thankful to finally be “done” and hand it over to the management company.
Real Estate Broker · Minneapolis, MN · Member since 2011 · 5k+ posts · 6k+ votes
6y
? ? ? ? Question ? ? ? ?
If this is renting to college kids, why does it seem the only bait anyone uses is lowering rent $$$$ ????
I mean, there college kids, maybe I am in a different college town but frugal and cost conscious are NOT words I would associate with the iphone carrying, designer brand wearing, starbucks drinking college kids I see.
Has anyone tried doing what everyone else does to get college kids business and making it "cool"????
Offering free wifi? For a rooming house have a giant bigscreen tv? Cable/ Dish? Maybe add an x-box?
While I havn't leased college rentals, I have built college rentals. The ones I built were ridiculous; had a common house with hot tub, sonna, computer "lab", coffee bar, big-screen tv with satellite tv that was bigger than my truck. And not only were the prices bezonkers crazy expensive, they also pre-sold ALL of the units before we completed them. Oh yeah, that's right, they didn't even rent then, they sold them as student condo's with association fee's. And could only resell through the association so the in-house agent got a new listing every student turn. Maximum of 2 students per unit, each unit STARTED at $140k. Nobody bought those because it made $$$$ sense, it was all due to "cool".
Market to your audience, look how they make other buying decisions and follow in suite.
Oklahoma City, OK · Member since 2015 · 2 posts · 1 vote
6y
@Kelsey Folger Nice job getting the place rented out. I finished the rehab on mine during the summer and felt lucky to get the house rented this year - the prospect of going a semester or school year without a tenant is scary!
@James Hamling College students are all over the spectrum. I've seen some places in terrible condition, but they stay rented because the rent is cheap and location is good. The students in my rent house tried to haggle with me on price when I knew I already had it underpriced to get tenants quickly. Then obviously you have the students that aren't concerned about price.
Investor · Narragansett, RI · Member since 2013 · 8k+ posts · 4k+ votes
6y
@Kelsey Folger Great you did this. Hopefully next year you do better on rent. Are you doing delayed financing or just going to leave the cash in?
@James Hamling I will take your word for it on the cool factor but it really depends on the university. You have to compare the on campus cost to off campus rentals, and consider what your tenant pool is. Your 140 k units would be as great deal in some places, for 2 students/ thats what about $500/student a month.
Rental Property Investor · MI · Member since 2018 · 51 posts · 64 votes
6y
@James Hamling I like your perspective and I agree that making it “cool” would be a great tip in the future. This is a public university in northern Michigan, so there’s not a whole ton of showy, rich college kids that choose to go to the school (from what I can tell). Although there are some nicer, newer apartment complexes near the highway, our rental is “downtown” where the houses are old and not usually updated.
We also ran out of money (our fault) so sinking a lot more into the property would have really been a bad financial decision at this point. We just wanted to stop the bleeding, per se.
Many people had said to try renting by the room or do Airbnb, but that didn’t pan out in the end. Although maybe in the future.
After all the expenses and reserves and PM, we should still cash flow around $400 per month this year, thankfully. The cap rate is around 7%.
Rental Property Investor · MI · Member since 2018 · 51 posts · 64 votes
6y
@Colleen F. Thanks, we plan to get a mortgage as soon as the seasoning period is over. We had wanted to put new siding on beforehand, but this rehab has been too expensive already.
I think it was you that suggested adding closet doors... the next day my husband went out and bought doors for all 7 bedrooms and he’s installing the last one today. 😊 Thanks for your advice.
Investor · Columbus, GA · Member since 2018 · 9 posts · 9 votes
6y
Congrats on getting the units leased up. We saw a dip in inquires for our units from March - May as well because of COVID and the school not knowing if they were going to bring classes back on campus or not. Like you though we found success and leased up all of our units with 90% of the leads coming through posting to facebook marketplace and student facebook groups. We expect to fully lease up again for next year but are preparing for another turbulent leasing season because of the continued uncertainty.
As for the outlook of student housing I don't think its the "end of an era" but I do think smaller schools that don't have some sort of unique draw such as a top tier football, academic or party reputation are more at risk in the very long term to a national online class movement.
Investor · New York City, NY · Member since 2014 · 289 posts · 374 votes
6y
This is interesting. We were unexpectedly slammed with requests this year for student housing because no one wants to live in dorms this year. This is after we reduced rents because we were worried about finding renters....