Please share your experiences with individual leases for college student appartments. DD wants to move into a four bedroom apartment with 3 other girls next semester. Each girl will have their own bedroom and bathroom and shared living/dining area. One fourth of the electric bill will be billed to each girl and they will pay their own rent. Two of the girls have already signed the lease. She is in an area with a GLUT of college apartments! A brand new college apartment building is opening for the fall term and the college is opening new upperclassmen dorms in the fall. The apartment she wants to rent is known to have big incentives and discounts for leases signed closer to the start of the term.
I’ve advised DD to hold off signing a lease to see if they offer discounts latter on. Does anyone know of situations where roommates are paying different rent for the same apartment with individual leases?
Have never heard of different prices in the same apartment. When my son has done individual leases, they’ve had to all have them signed within a certain period of time, usually a month or so. If at that time they don’t have 4 leases signed for a 4 bedroom , management company places people on their wait lists into those bedrooms. In his college town the better places are typically filled by November for the next school year. Definitely “you snooze you lose”
My kids rented with others. They ALL signed the leases t about the same time…because they didn’t want to worry about not having things covered. They made it clear that they would find OTHER roommates if folks didn’t ante up on their time line.
Your daughter’s roommates might just decide they need someone who can make a commitment. Don’t be surprised if that comes up.
Thanks, I’ll have her check to see if there is some time line she needs to be aware of. This apartment building is still looking for kids to sign for January leases and the new apartments (private and school) haven’t even opened yet so I’m having a hard time thinking that they will fill by fall without serious incentives.
We have apartments we rent to students, usually on separate leases. And yes, they do sometimes end up paying different rents. In your D’s case, if these other girls are friends, she might want to split any “incentive” she receives, or at least expect to get the worst room, inasmuch as there is one.
Different prices not uncommon if room sizes are smaller. DD1’s previous place had 4 beds 4 baths, 2 bedrooms were ‘small’ and 2 were ‘large’, about $30 price diff/month.
Biggest disaster? agreeing who pays electric bill. For 3 years we rotated between parents of each of the girls. Last year was me. Took me 4 months and many emails to the student’s mother to get things paid (2 different girls).
Even bigger disaster? one of the girls had a cat that, mildly put it, caused lots of collateral damage. Don’t get me wrong, my daughter has a monster cat in her apartment now, but zero destruction and zero litterbox accidents. The cat in the shared apartment… well… let’s just say he failed Litterbox 101 AND 102. Thankfully my daughter moved out in the summer before the lease expired, because when it did, it was just the two deadbeat girls and from what we heard things went ugly very quickly.
Since then we’ve decided the peace of mind is worth the effort of a single apartment. In grad school DD1 has her own (with said monster cat) and DD2 is getting her own on campus studio…
If they are individual leases I guess the only worry is if they rent the other two rooms to someone else. What @thumper1 said. ^^^ As a parent, I would be wondering if “the others” (that hadn’t signed yet) were actually going to come through and would be encouraging them to tighten things up with someone they liked so they don’t end up with nightmare or random room mates.
My son lives in a 4bd room apartment and has 3 other roomates. One of the guys already lived there and my son and his two other friends signed a lease roughly the same time to live together. It has worked out well for them so far. The only issue is having to pay for the apartment during the summer. Son is going to work there this summer instead of coming home. I would advise you not to wait to long. Those rooms will fill fast in the next couple of months.
Yes, I’ve heard of different rents being paid for the same apartment when there are individual leases. The rent depended on when the student signed the lease and whether there were any discounts at the time.
One thing that has been a problem in my daughter’s college town is that a group of four students will go in together and sign individual leases for a four bedroom apartment. However, under the terms of what they sign (which they never understand), the landlord has no obligation to put them together, and if there isn’t a completely empty four bedroom apartment available, they’ll end up not being together in the same apartment, but they’ll still be bound by the lease. I don’t know if that goes on in other places, but I’d advise being VERY careful about what is signed if your child is signing an individual lease and wants to live with specific others. I would also ask about who else the complex rents to. I’ve heard of students who were placed with non-students (including a woman who had a baby!!). If the complex can’t fill up with students, they may have the right under the lease to lease to whomever else they can find.
In our case we always try to find a group willing to lease together, however, sometimes one or more will leave during or after the lease period and we will have to find a replacement if the rest of the group can’t come up with someone.