4 Tips for Finding Off-Campus Apartments

Whether you’re a freshman that is new to campus, but are looking to live in an off-campus apartment or you have lived in the dorms during your freshman year and are ready to move off campus this year, finding a college apartment which fits your needs can be stressful. Here are four tips designed to assist you in finding an off-campus apartment.

Finding Off-Campus Apartments

Furnished Vs. Unfurnished

Many college campuses have an assortment of nearby apartments, some of them furnished and some of them unfurnished. If you’re already planning on bringing your own bed and other furnishings, you can often save money on rent by going with an unfurnished apartment. Even if you don’t plan to bring your bed and other furnishings along, sometimes inexpensive furnishings can be purchased once you get to school. Of course, if you do bring along your own furniture, you will then have to move it out of the apartment once you leave. Sometimes it’s worth the convenience of not having to worry about finding furniture and having to worry about moving the furniture once you graduate. There are pros and cons to both options. Weigh them, and decide what is right for you.

Ask Current or Past Students

Current students or those who have graduated recently are great sources of information to turn to when trying to decide the best place to live. They can tell you about their good and bad student housing experiences as well as the good and bad experiences of their friends. An apartment complex which looks great on their website or other promotional advertising might not be as great in reality.

For example, the website is not going to tell you about the roof leak that occurred in one apartment for two months before the owners repaired the damage or how they had a bedbug problem last semester that has never been resolved. Yet, the apartment websites also will not give you a feel for how that little run-down looking place actually has a really nice management staff who are quick to resolve any issues or how the owner of that other complex took twenty dollars off each person’s rent in one apartment when the dishwasher stopped working and the residents were without one for a week. You can only learn those details through other students.

Take into Consideration Other Expenses

When picking a college apartment, it’s important to take into consideration other expenses associated with the apartment. For example, while the one place might have the cheapest rent in town, you might also have to pay extra if you want internet and cable. As a college student, you’re going to at least need the internet at home. Then again, if you’re splitting the cost of the Internet between several people, the less expensive rent might still be lower, even with the internet added in.

Some apartment complexes also either pay gas and/or electricity up to a certain point or they expect you to pay these bills entirely yourself. If there is a cap on how much they will pay, it’s often high enough that if you use your resources wisely, you will rarely pay more than a couple of dollars each month extra for electricity or gas. If you’re required to pay the bills yourself, though, your monthly expenses could go up significantly.

Other added expenses which are worth taking into consideration are if you have to buy a parking permit for the complex, if you will have to drive to school and the cost of renting an apartment with a washer and dryer versus using the on-site coin-op machines or a local Laundromat.

Look for Listed Openings On Campus

When someone has to leave in a hurry, often the person will put up fliers on campus in an attempt to break the lease quickly. This may happen if the person leaves to study abroad, transfers, gets married, leaves for an internship or just does not get along with the other roommates. Although the final reason might be a reason to reconsider moving into that apartment, often when the person has to leave in a hurry, you can get a good deal on a student apartment. Free rent for a month, reduced rent for all or part of the contract and other bonuses are not uncommon if someone needs to break a lease in a hurry, especially if that person is responsible for paying the rent if he or she does not find someone to take the student housing contract.

For other tips on finding an off-campus apartment, consider this previous post about student housing. Do you have some off-campus housing locating tips of your own, let us know about them in the comment section below.