<p>Pretty frightening isn't it;) It's two 6 bedroom, 3 bath units connected by a patio and upstairs porch. It's actually pretty nice, not the dump it will be by the time they move out! haha! It's also walking distance to campus, which at UT-Austin, is prime property!!</p>
<p>I'm just trying to imagine the logistics of groceries with 6 roomies! Does that mean 6 gallons of milk, 6 loaves of bread, etc---or will they all shop together and split the cost?</p>
<p>Depends on the kid and the housing offered by the school. I have a nephew at a large state U in the midwest. He recently moved off campus with a bunch of guys and seems quite happy. The one year lease can be an issue though. He doesn't want to stay the summer and the lease lasts until Sept. He'll look to sublease but you just don't know if that will come through.</p>
<p>mkm, if I know my son, it will mean that he will still be eating at Hot Wings to go on a daily basis ;)</p>
<p>My older son shops for himself and they label their food (he has a girlfriend who comes over to cook with/for him so he is done with takeout!). At first, he and his roomies tried the share method, but someone was always getting angry about a favorite being eaten before they got to it - Much less conflict with buying their own.</p>
<p>The guys my younger son is living with will have to figure out their own method, they'll work it out over time. They all are in the same fraternity, and their place is close to the house, so I guess they can eat a portion of their meals there.</p>
<p>In grad school I lived in a house with four bedrooms. Most of those bedrooms were occupied by couples. We also had an eating group that met 5 nights a week. We had two fridges - everyone had a shelf for their stuff - and then there was a space for shared items - mostly leftovers from the eating group meals. There was a certain amount of accounting at the end of each month, but it worked extremely smoothly. Perhaps partly because this particular house had a tradition going back decades. It's still there - still operating under much the same rules. It now has a website!</p>
<p>I live in a house about 1/2 mile off-campus with 6 other girls. (7 girls can be a lot, but compared to living with 40 in the sorority house, this is much more peaceful!) The main hassles with living off-campus are collecting money for bills, getting everyone to pitch in with the chores, and sometimes studying when someone has a random exam and everyone else is loud and going out.</p>
<p>Cost-wise, it's about equal to living on campus. But with housing at my school, once you move off-campus you can't get back on. I moved into the sorority house my sophomore year (about equal price to living on-campus) and then had to continue living off-campus. I live in a suburb of Washington, DC though, and housing prices are just ridiculous.</p>
<p>Overall, I say let him do it if he wants to! It's a good experience; a great way to gain independence while still having a collegiate living environment.</p>
<p>Wow, this could have been me three years ago. </p>
<p>My son also chose to move off campus with two of his cross country team mates after his freshman year. They found a very nice three bedroom apartment that cost them $200 each, which included gas/water/electric. Then they split the cost of the cable/internet/phone bill, and each buy their own groceries. </p>
<p>I give him $400 a month to cover all expenses, and have saved more than $100 a month from the university's room and board.</p>
<p>Now granted, this is a small state school, in a very small town in Kansas, and your housing costs may be quite different.</p>
<p>When he first came to me with this plan, the parents of one of the other boys had already spoken with the landlord, and had checked the place out thoroughly (they live closer to school than I do, and it was easier for them), and assured us other parents that it was a good deal. </p>
<p>The place was not furnished, but between the three of them, and some Salvation Army deals, they've been able to furnish the place quite nicely for a boys college apartment. </p>
<p>One thing that I would suggest though is to make sure they all get something in writing about what happens if one of them decides to drop out of school before the lease is up. This happened to my son the first year they were in their apartment. One of the other boys decided to quit the cross country team, which meant he lost his scholarship. When he couldn't come up with the money to cover the cost of school, he moved back home with his parents. Luckily, the kid had enough integrity to continue to pay his share of the rent until the lease was up in July, and the two other boys didn't get stuck with the whole tab. They did have to split the other bills two ways, instead of three, but it wasn't that bad. When July rolled around, they were able to get another kid from the team to take the empty space, and come next spring, they will all be graduating. </p>
<p>An advantage to having a year round off campus home is that you don't have to drag all of their stuff home every summer. I dont have room to store all of the things my son has accumulated over 4 years of college for three months out of the year, and would probably have ended up having to pay storage charges anyway, plus rent a truck or something to get his stuff from the dorm to the storage unit, and in the end probably pay nearly as much.</p>
<p>I would also suggest asking for a copy of the lease so that you can sit down with your student and his friends and make sure they understand what is expected of them as far as keeping the place clean, and undamaged.</p>
<p>One of our huge concerns is liability. We live in Rochester, NY where 2 senior RIT students were killed in a fire in an off campus apartment in the city here just a month ago. If something terrible were to happen to any of the kids, or the house who is liable?? We assume the parents, because the kids don't have much.. </p>
<p>His rent would be $430 per month plus utilities which seems very steep to us.</p>
<p>$430 per mo would be a HUGE bargain around here! Sons house is $4000 a month (6 kids) not including utilities (for a older, run down house). And they were happy to get something so "cheap". its all relative I guess.</p>
<p>I nearly choked when I heard that my son's room in his 6 bdrm duplex was going to run us $725 a month, but as the post above says, it's all relative.</p>
<p>Turns out that $725 for a "within walking distance" to campus place is cheap!!</p>
<p>I wish I'd bought property there back in the 80's, we could retire! ;)</p>
<p>$430 would be a huge bargain here too!! each of my roommates pays $620/month for our 6-bedroom house, plus around $100 in utilities. the majority of us also have paid for on-campus parking permits, since the town can be unsafe at night and we have the occasional activity or evening class.</p>