Comments on 8 people renting a house

<p>Son just called last night to inform us he is looking at renting a house with 7 other people for next year.Any comments or suggestions on how this has worked or not worked for your student. He is a freshmen this year living in a dorm and it caught us by surprise that 1)you have to start securing places already for next fall and 2)the cost involved. Thanks.</p>

<p>Probably the biggest concern is making sure they have enough funds to cover rent and other related costs if one or two drop off. Make sure the lease doesn't handcuff your kid if the others flake out. </p>

<p>College dorms are very pricey, no question. However, one advantage is when a roomate bails out of college for whatever reason, you don't have an immediate housing cost increase. </p>

<p>It's going to depend alot on who these other 7 are as well. Does your S know them all and how well?</p>

<p>This will be a good learning experience. Does it have 8 bedrooms?</p>

<p>It is an unfortunate truth at some colleges that the best off-campus apartments and houses are leased very early in the prior school year -- long before the lottery for on-campus dorm spaces. A kid who waits for the dorm lottery and either doesn't get a space (at a school that does not guarantee housing) or gets a really lousy one (at a school that does guarantee housing) is likely to find himself stuck with only the dregs of the local rentals. So what your son is doing now may actually be a good idea.</p>

<p>A few pointers:</p>

<ol>
<li>Make sure your son finds out the true cost, not just the rent. He needs to know what utilities and services are included in the rent, and he needs to get an estimate (perhaps from a current tenant) of how much additional he will have to pay for the other things. </li>
</ol>

<p>My son lives in a four-person off-campus apartment where the rent seems high at first glance. But it includes complete furnishings, heat, electricity, water, TV cable, and high-speed Internet. The only extras the tenants pay for are telephone and parking (and since my son uses a cell phone exclusively and does not have a car, he does not pay either of those). So his overall cost is actually lower than that of some kids in supposedly cheaper buildings.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Find out from the landlord exactly what happens if someone leaves because it's almost certain to happen. Some landlords have policies that seem to be designed for the student-as-tenant situation. In my son's building, the other kids in the apartment do NOT have to pay the ex-tenant's rent if someone leaves. Instead, they have a short period of time in which they can pull in a substitute tenant. If they don't find someone in time, the landlord reserves the right to put a person from the waiting list in there. My son got his place in the apartment as a pull-in when someone left, and one of his three roommates is an arbitrarily selected stranger off the landlord's waiting list (which worked out just fine in this case but might not in others).</p></li>
<li><p>Find out as much as you can about the fire safety situation in the house. Many of the houses rented to students are really old. They may not be up to code. There should at least be smoke detectors, and the kids should not disable them. And it might be a good idea to find out whether there is any way for people to escape from the upper floors in the event of a fire. Some of these old houses are total firetraps (which is why I'm glad my son is living in a two-year-old apartment building rather than in one of the many old houses near his university).</p></li>
<li><p>I don't think getting along with housemates is going to be a huge issue. He's a guy. Somehow, guys don't seem to have as much trouble with this as girls do. (Please don't yell at me for saying this. I'm only quoting my son.)</p></li>
<li><p>Have your son and his prospective housemates thought about whether or not any of them will be joining fraternities (or sororities, if any of the eight are women)? On some campuses, fraternity/sorority rush takes place during the second semester of freshman year, and those who join houses are likely to want to live in those houses as sophomores (the chapter might even require this). If this is going to happen at your son's school, and if several of his prospective housemates are planning to rush, there could be a LOT of turnover in terms of who will be living in that rental house next year.</p></li>
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<p>My D has been a resident of an off-campus house near her college. It has been a student rental for 25 years (and yes, it's still in pretty good shape). During her summer there, there were twelve students in residence. She paid $200/month (which included utilities) for a space on the second floor landing where she put her futon. </p>

<p>Most of the off-campus houses around Reed seem to be "managed" by a single student who holds the lease and maintains relations with the utility company and then charges a flat rent to the other students. The "manager" changes every few years; apparently the house-owners are comfortable with this arrangement. I think it works because the house rent is fairly minimal to begin with (Portland has a relatively cheap housing market).</p>

<p>I concur with Marian about the importance of smoke detectors. I would also suggest a fire extinguisher for the kitchen.</p>

<p>All good advice. My instinct is that with eight kids, the likelihood that one (or more) of them will have problems making his share of the payments, or leave suddenly, is very, very high. The roommates have to have a plan for that, unless it's one of the #2 situations Marian describes (which, I think, involve a significant rent premium).</p>

<p>My daughter is one of four kids in a four-bedroom apartment no farther from her campus than some of the dorms she might have lived in. Even after the extras and not getting full price for the summer sublet, etc., she is saving about $2,500 vs. the dorms, for much nicer living space (but no 24-hour security). So it's worth a little trouble. But it is a little trouble.</p>

<p>There can actually be some advantages to the traditional lease where the tenants as a group are responsible for the rent because it means that the landlord cannot inflict a stranger on them as a roommate.</p>

<p>In my son's building, each student basically rents his own bedroom, with the right to share a kitchen and living room with several others. In some of the apartments, each bedroom has its own bathroom; in others, the bathrooms are shared. The individual leases are independent of each other, and each bedroom has a separate door lock. If someone moves out, it doesn't cost the others anything, but the landlord has the right to put absolutely anybody in the empty room. Some kids might find that intolerable. (On the other hand, there are a thousand kids living in this building, and there is a waiting list, so perhaps there are plenty who don't find it intolerable.)</p>

<p>My son is paying about $2000 more than he paid in the dorms but for much nicer facilities (and he is no farther from the campus academic buildings than he was in the dorms). He has a 12-month lease, but he is taking advantage of it. He is going to take a course in the 3-week winter session this year, which would not have been possible if he had been living on-campus because the dorms are not open then. Also, he has applied for several summer internships near the university, with the idea that if he gets one, he will simply continue to live in his off-campus apartment over the summer. Since his college town is in a better location for internships than our home town is, this may prove to be advantageous.</p>

<p>It probably depends on what the general practice is for sophomore housing at your son's school, but to me it seems a little early to be making this kind of plan. This is particularly early for freshman, who really hardly even know who their friends are yet, and how academics and activities are all going to work out. I suppose housing availability varies greatly depending upong school but this seems like quite a big and maybe premature step given that school-owned housing choices are in my experience made second semester--discussions may take place this eary but the actual official stuff doesn't happen yet. This almost sounds to me like a group of boys who may have decided that dorm life is too restrictive and they want to get out as soon as possible.</p>

<p>The fire safety and other security issues raised by other posters are important; another concern is that if all the boys are rising sophs they are all under 21 and almost certainly will be under 21 all of next school year; underage drinking is going to be a huge issue. More to the poont, and not to start one of those endless party/not party/do they/don't they threads, BUT: a housefull of boys is going to be a house where lots of parties are going to be held. How and where they get alcohol is one matter of interest, but the one you might be especially concerned about is that whoever's name is on the lease is probably the person with liability for anything that goes wrong. Without knowing the boys involved it is perhaps presumptuous to raise these issues but I would feel a certain discomfort about all this. A group of two or three or four living in a decent apartment is one thing; a houseful of eight strikes me as too much too soon.</p>

<p>My older child lived in dorms for the first three year of college and then in a school-owned house just off campus for senior year; that was the general practice and worked fine (house not terribly clean but school was in charge of major mainteneance/upkeep stuff). Food for cooking was cheaper than school meal plan, and I don't recall utility costs but think they may have been included in housing cost. The residents were all seniors because only seniors werw allowed this option and most had known eadh other for several years; everyone in the house was an existing friend of at least some of the other residents--it was sort of a melding of several interrelated groups--worked fine. I know they gave their share of parties, but they were all 21 by then and had to some extent outgrown the more extreme forms of college socializing and were quite set in their academic/social/extracurricular paths by then.</p>

<p>Let me plug the idea of going to the school's Off-Campus Housing Office on top of all the other good advice already posted. </p>

<p>The woman who ran the off-campus housing office at one of the schools at which I worked knew almost every building and landlord in the area and could give students great info about what to expect. She also had a book of "reviews" for each building that went back a few years. This was in Boston, not a little town, which I thought was pretty impressive.</p>

<p>Anyway, even if students have a house picked out, it might be a good idea to see if the resident expert has any tips for dealing with the property or the landlord.</p>

<p>I second Marian's comments about fire security. It is a really serious issue. Be sure to give your son HIS OWN smoke alarm for his room. Be sure he doesn't borrow the battery out of it. Do this even if the house has other fire alarm systems.</p>

<p>My D has been in the same rental house for soph.-senior years, with a total of five girls living there. They each have their own bedroom and there are two bathrooms. It's worked out pretty well, but there have been issues about cleaning and food. Dirty dishes and pots and pans are a continuing problem. With 8 guys I hope they would have a kitchen cleaning schedule and stick to it! My nephew also had a problem with dirty kitchen in an all-guy house.</p>

<p>My D has a wonderful landlord who fixes any issues promptly. The house is very cute and in a neighborhood with a lot of student rentals. The town police drive by every fifteen minutes at night.</p>

<p>I have no personal experience with this issue yet since my S is a freshmen; however, a friend's S rented a house last year, and even though he has since moved, is still involved in an issue about the security deposit. The landlord is trying to hold the 8 guys liable for damages that they assure their parents was there before they moved in---nothing major but things like drywall and paint damage, carpet stains, etc. The landlord will probably get away with keeping about $1000 deposit from each of the 8 kids because the cost to fight it would probably amount to big legal fees...My advice would be to take LOTS of pictures when the kids move in.</p>

<p>Our D is in a co-ed eight-student house now, in eight bedrooms (one of the 1900's era big old houses, in poor shape, but appropriate for students, I suppose), all sophomores. Last year they were all in dorms and wanted the idyllic adventure of living in a house together. It hasn't been so idyllic; too many are, well, slobs, and our D is neat. One student got a big dog which has been breaking into foodstuffs and chewing up stuff. It hasn't been so bad that she wants to move out. Overall, it is much cheaper than dorm living. She still wants to live in an off-campus house next year, but with only three others, which will be more expensive, but still cheaper than the dorm. The landlord has been reasonable, but we don't expect to get any deposit back. Sigh.</p>

<p>It is common at schools to be signing leases now for next fall? Think of what these management companies can do with all this deposit money they get so far in advance.</p>

<p>
[quote]
there have been issues about cleaning and food. Dirty dishes and pots and pans are a continuing problem.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Why should roommates be any different now than they were in the Pleistocene when my roommates and I would rather eat out of a can than do dishes?</p>

<p>Our son moved into a 3-unit, 12 br rowhouse three blocks from campus with 10 other students soph year. It has been a great experience for him and nine returned junior year(one moved into a frat house and the other graduated). A few tips that they implemented to make things run smooth.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Everyone signed the lease putting them on the hook for their share of the rent!</p></li>
<li><p>Budget-they worked out a budget of $400/mo or $4800/yr for those who wanted to eat meals in the apartment. A few chose to remain with the univ meat plan and they paid somewhat less, though I am not sure how much less. Their detailed budget of $400 covered rent, food, all utilities, CTV and high speed internet. The important thing is to work out the $'s beforehand. BTW, nobody opted for the university meal plan this year.</p></li>
<li><p>They set up a business checking accout where all the monies were deposited and assigned one person to keep track of the expenditures. He got the first pick of bedroom.</p></li>
<li><p>They held a random lottery for choice of bedroom.</p></li>
<li><p>They prepared a chore list for the residents of each floor.</p></li>
<li><p>They set up a wireless internet system with coverage of the entire house.</p></li>
<li><p>They had a grocery request board in the first floor kitchen. Anyone could put whatever they wanted bought the next trip to the grocery store.</p></li>
<li><p>They agreed to cook their own meals, even dinner except on special occasions. They are having their T'giving this Sunday nite.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>They have all become good friends and there have been no major problems it seems.</p>

<p>my only comment to 8 guys sharing a house is "YIKES!!"</p>

<p>ELEVEN kids (even of mixed genders) sharing a house! (In originaloog's post.) YIKES x 2! Lucky that it went well.</p>

<p>My wife shared a house with 7 others her last semester of college. Four "women" and four "boys"; lots of arguments (mostly along gender lines). She has remained life-long friends with two of the other women, but she hasn't spoken to any of the boys since halfway through that semester.</p>

<p>My sister, as a working adult in her twenties, shared a 6-person house with a variety of other people for several years.</p>

<p>She says the secret to civilized living is that the majority of the occupants must be female. When there were 4 women and 2 men in the house, the common areas were clean and quiet. But each time the balance shifted to 3 women and 3 men, the atmosphere instantly turned into that of a fraternity house.</p>

<p>Marian, our D's mix is indeed four and four, so uncivilized chaos ensues. Great point.</p>