<p>When my daughter started at Cal Poly SLO as a transfer, we got her a room in Mustang Village, which is a large student housing property adjoining the university. It is not owned by Cal Poly but has only their students, and some from the local community college renting there. After she moved in and got to know her roommates, she discovered they were paying less than she was. Apparently, the price fluctuated according to when you signed up, something we didn’t know in advance. It appears that if you did know that, you could negotiate the terms of the lease.</p>
<p>ah but pearl…that is not university owned housing. In the ‘free market’ rent CAN be negotiated and often is. As a property owner (in my past), I was very willing to negotiate the rent rate, or deposit rate for tenants. BUT I do not believe this would ever happen in university owned housing.</p>
<p>I’m sure you’re correct, Thumper. Before posting, I considered the possibility of what you wrote, but decided to post anyway on the off-chance another Cal Poly parent reads the thread. It’s a very large university and you never know who might benefit from this bit of insider information. :)</p>
<p>The public dorms and those owned by any universities are NOT going to negotiate- they are not making a profit and have no room to accept less than their costs (those costs will include projected fill rates- any usual vacancies as well as other costs as mentioned above). Private housing will charge what the market will bear- a rented space is better than any vacancies and they try to get as much profit as they can. Not an economist, but this is not a “supply and demand” sensitive pricing issue (there is a better analogy, but any econ was xty years ago…).</p>
<p>There may be the occasional situation where the rate might be cut because students wound up sharing a triple in a lobby due to overenrollment…</p>
<p>That is not the same as negotiating the price- schools with crowded dorms may give a discount for those students in temporary housing until things settle down, but no negotiation is possible.</p>
<p>wis75 – I agree; that’s just the only scenario I’m personally familiar with where someone got a discounted rate, and only then because the students were not in an actual room.</p>