<p>Does anybody know how much is a "reasonable" rent for a two bedroom apartment (4 students) around the university these days?</p>
<p>Prepare to be taken hostage by MAC.</p>
<p>Don’t know if this helps, but S1 pays $900/month for a very nice one bedroom in a very well maintained building just a few blocks from the main quad. Many faculty members live in the building as well.</p>
<p>I’ve seen some of the reviews of “MAC.” Not pretty. Somehow it’s starting to feel like being on the wrong end of a set of Ginsu knives.</p>
<p>I don’t know of any situation where four students rent a two-bedroom apartment! That sounds like a dorm!</p>
<p>Last year, my son was in a three-bedroom apartment across the street from one of the dorms, and a couple blocks from campus proper. He paid $450/mo. for his share. They had a sunroom/alcove, and for one quarter they had a fourth roommate in that (who paid less than the kids with real bedrooms). I think that knocked him down to $375, but it wasn’t an arrangement anyone loved. This was not a “nice” apartment, but it was a fun building. One or two people in each apartment shared a common EC, so it was a lot like a theme house.</p>
<p>This year, he inherited his sib’s two-bedroom apartment, in a great area about a mile from campus (but convenient to everything else). It’s the nicest student apartment I’ve ever seen – a little shabby, but two large bedrooms, kitchen, pantry, separate dining room, living room, sun porch. One smallish bathroom. A building mainly occupied by actual adults, not students. I think his half of the rent is $650. That’s probably more than anyone else he knows pays, but nicer space, too.</p>
<p>Rehabbed buildings closer to campus, and luxury apartments along the lake said to be popular with upperclass econ majors, can be much more expensive than that. I think you can get a lot cheaper, too, south of campus, or north of 53rd.</p>
<p>They seem to have a lot of time available today (15 messages and 10 phone calls) and are frantically looking (as frantic as you can be in 22 degree weather, on foot). They are set on 4 people and are actually looking at a 4 bedroom (2 blocks from campus). My wife said the same thing, “why would anybody want to share a bedroom?” We did then. Rent today is exactly 10 times what it was 40 years ago when I first went to college. Cousin and I met future roommates over the Summer and flipped coins as to who would get the room that overlooked the pool (sorry guys, this was Florida). We won the toss, but they got there first in August (you know, posession…) and we could not dislodge him. The culprit doesn’t know it but I’ve never gotten even and I’m still biding my time. In any case, it looks like they have to sleep with MAC and $500-550/month/student. Heat included. As my wife would say “Oy vey, Maria.”</p>
<p>Sounds like a pretty good deal compared to the dorms/meal plans.</p>
<p>10x in 40 years represents less than 6% inflation, which is a lot less than the tuition.</p>
<p>The relationship between MAC and the University must be fascinating. In the short run, they desperately need one another; in the long run, the University’s goal is to continue expanding its campus housing (and thus deprive MAC of renters). </p>
<p>Over the past few years, MAC has doubled down on its Hyde Park holdings. If Chicago had gotten the Olympics, the University would have wound up with all the dorms it wanted, Hyde Park would have been completely made over, and MAC would have gotten a huge windfall (months of astronomical rents, and general appreciation in the whole area). Without the Olympics, the quality of student experience at the University for the foreseeable future depends on MAC, and the value of MAC’s holdings depends on a strong University. </p>
<p>But I wouldn’t be surprised if, at the personal level, MAC and the University administration view one another with contempt and scorn. The University could not have been happy when MAC bought out all of its significant competitors and turned itself into the University’s de facto housing office.</p>
<p>Who would have thought that holding the 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil would affect the future of housing at UofC. I don’t know if MAC has a lot of holdings in the South side of the University, but maybe with the new dorm and revamping of other buildings UofC is preparing to challenge them in that area.</p>
<p>Curiously, the estimated cost for S to attend UF would have been roughly under $20k/year which is exactly 10x what it cost 40 years ago, if only because tuition for in-state students is less than $4.5k/year (don’t get any ideas, people, OOS tuition is, I think, up to about $23k this year).</p>
<p>MAC does not own everything available to students. It may own more HP buildings than anyone else, but it’s not that hard to avoid. And you should given the choice.</p>
<p>Do not sign a lease without seeing the apartment in its finished form. I subletted a place that I saw while they were ‘renovating’ it. They patched a hole in the ceiling and painted the bathtub. That was it, and I had paint on my feet all summer. They also lied about laundry, which they never installed in the unit, and which was broken in the building for months.</p>
<p>If MAC is ever the cheapest option, bear in mind that you will probably have to pay for a number of services yourself that they would be expected to provide. My neighbor had a locksmith replace their apartment door locks, which were falling out of the door, after MAC didn’t answer calls for a week and a half.</p>
<p>My D lives with 1 roommate in a non-MAC apartment owned by a private landlord within spitting distance of campus. It’s 2 BR (though converted from a 1 BR, the original dining room is the living/dining room now) and she pays $525 + electric and internet. Rent includes heat, hw and gas. The MAC apartments they looked at were, for the most part, in far worse condition with additional fees. My S (graduated 2007) lived for 3 years in his apt. when he was there, about 1 mile from campus, but close to many other things. His rent was, I think, $480, but again, it was non-MAC and huge. I think there were 7 BR, or living spaces (1 might have been a converted sun room).</p>