Finding housing for summer internships

<p>This may have been covered before, and if so, I'd love a link, but wondering how you find housing for an internship when the company has no relocation assistance, ie, no money, no help finding a place.</p>

<p>Do any of you stay at extended stay type hotels? </p>

<p>Do you stay an hour away, just to have a safe place to stay and put up with the commute?</p>

<p>While many large companies have suggestions for interns, what if all you can get is a small company and you're on your own?</p>

<p>Would love to hear some input on this.</p>

<p>Son still hasn't received an offer, but with less than a month to go of the semester, if he gets something at the last minute, would like to know where to start to find housing at a short notice.</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

<p>I highly recommend airbnb dot com. (Google ‘airbnb’).</p>

<p>Basically just people renting out extra rooms in their house for short-term stays. I’ve had many positive experiences with it, and it’s generally pretty cheap.</p>

<p>Though, if you have the money, an extended stay hotel certainly gives him more autonomy over his day to day life, since he’s not a guest in someone’s house.</p>

<p>Are you able to negotiate with extended stay hotels for cheaper rates? I’ve seen some extended stay hotels that are terrible, not safe at all, but there are some nice Hilton and Marriott extended stay hotels that have a high nightly rate, but wondering if you can negotiate a monthly or weekly rate with them.</p>

<p>Also, is there a website that you can find “corporate housing”, ie, furnished apartments for extended stay?</p>

<p>We have a minor league baseball team in our city, and one of their sponsors is an apartment management company that provides furnished apartments for the players as they rotate in and out and move up from the minors to the majors and back.</p>

<p>I would rather son not stay with another family. Been looking at Craigslist for some of the cities he’s applied and seen some ads for 30 something couples wanting to share expenses. Eww! I’d gladly pay the money for him to have some place safe to stay, even if he has to make a 30 minute commute.</p>

<p>Why “eww!” at the thought of 30-something couples wanting to share expenses? What’s so horrific about that? … I spent a few months in my early 20s living in the extra bedroom of a 30-something couple’s 2-bdrm apartment. </p>

<p>Not too many hotels are that flexible about extended stay pricing, but you can try. </p>

<p>Airbnb also rents out entire furnished apartments for days / weeks / months at a time, so he’d be living in someone else’s apartment by himself. </p>

<hr>

<p>Also, considering that your son is an adult … why isn’t he asking these questions himself? Why does he have a parent doing this for him?</p>

<p>I am not sure if it’s too late, but I do know quite a few colleges renting out their dorms for summer interns. NYU, Columbia, WashU, Carnegie Mellon, Emory do that. My D got a dorm at one of the listed colleges, although it’s little pricey.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Possible answers–</p>

<ol>
<li> While my son and I are both adults, I have 33 more years of life experience than he does, and would like him to get the benefit of that.</li>
<li> My son is taking a full load of college courses, working a part- time job and seeking a summer internship, whereas I am a bored empty - nester housewife who is happy to be able to help.</li>
<li> Why do you, a total stranger, feel it is appropriate to criticize or even question a parent’s willingness to help her child by asking a question on a forum which has the purpose of answering such questions?</li>
</ol>

<p>Cobra, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. I watch too much TV. As Schokolade said, I am a parent, this is my only child, my son has been traveling, doing presentations, has several tests this week, and I really don’t mind doing internet searches while he’s tending to his academic duties. Do I want my son to miss out on a job because he has to ask for a time extension to find housing? By applying to jobs all over the country, that do not offer relocation assistance, he expressed his willingness to find his own housing. If I can help him with that, why not. </p>

<p>But cobra, you are right, I shouldn’t be so suspect. In fact, my FIL spent most of his single adult life sharing rooms in boarding houses, but that was back in the forties, and was very common back then. And you are right. It is nice to help a needy couple meet expenses. I wasn’t seeing it from that point of view. My son is a naive 21 year old. Yes, he’s an adult, but he’s never lived on his own, and he would not know if he’s being taken advantage of or not.</p>

<p>While I have been looking first for college dorms, though that is not what he wants, many of the companies he’s gotten interest from are in small towns that are not driving distance from universities. Because he is in his third year of engineering and desperately wants an internship this summer, he is willing to do anything and go anywhere to get any opportunity. </p>

<p>Thank you for any help anyone can give us and any advice on how to go about finding summer housing in areas where dormitories are not available.</p>

<p>Fair points all around. I hope that he lands an internship soon.</p>

<p>My final thought is this: make sure that he has a LinkedIn profile, and make sure that he is actively using it to build his network, both by connecting with headhunters at staffing agencies and recruiters inside of companies, as well as friends and family. LinkedIn is a bigger factor in me landing jobs than anything else.</p>

<p>While I understand the willingness to help, I am with Cobra in that college kids should be fully capable of figuring out their own housing. When I was in college, I figured out my own housing situation three out of four years; you are reasonable in wanting to help him to avoid having a landlord take advantage of him, but if there is a time to learn, college is it. Believe me, it helped me me a tremendous amount.</p>

<p>As for the substance of the original question, I’d look on Craigslist for a sublet. If he can stay near a college, there will be plenty of places available from college students away for the summer.</p>

<p>My son was lining up a short term furnished apartment rental as he was considering an internship near NYC. He just emailed large apartment buildings in the area and most had funished units available - maybe because of the area.The furnished short term rentals were much cheaper than any extended stay in the area and we were never able to get an extended stay to lower their rates. Also, sometimes the internship can recommend housing avenues to you. </p>

<p>Fortunately he ended up getting an REU with included housing so he can actually keep the money he earns!</p>

<p>^^^Great suggestion. Son did not apply for any REUs this year. He did last year, and that was a big reason I pushed for them, the housing issue. Not the cost, but the fact that his housing was provided.</p>

<p>I am hoping that now, as kids are getting notified for REUs, some of the applications he’s put in will start calling, as perhaps top candidates are choosing REUs over internships.</p>

<p>That is a good idea, to call apartment complexes to see if they have furnished units. And thank you, also, for the heads up that extended stays won’t lower rates. </p>

<p>Once son finishes exams in early May, if he still hasn’t gotten an internship, I’ll put this in his hands. If no internships come through by the end of May, he’ll be off to summer school. </p>

<p>Believe me, paying for a furnished apartment, or even extended stay, is going to be a lot cheaper than OOS summer school tuition and dorm.</p>

<p>Thank you also for the references to sites. I have a friend who has an apartment downstairs in her house, and she was wanting to change it over to short term rentals, rather than permanent leasing. I had only heard of VRBO, but I had not heard of airbnb. I passed that info on to her. We live in New Orleans, and she lives very close to Tulane and Loyola, so she’d probably have a great place for a New Orleans summer student/researcher.</p>

<p>do any of you have experience with roommate.com? If you have, how was the experience finding a roommate?</p>