I know several former classmates who ended up purchasing a house during their career as a student and acting as a student, tenant, landlord and property manager.   There are pro’s and con’s to owning a home when you’re in school and renting out the additional rooms to your friends.

In my opinion it all depends on your personality & management skills, your budget, handy-man (or woman) capabilities, and the economy.   I am certainly a fan of hard work and wise investments.  Do you have what it takes to not let your friends/roommates push you over when there is any conflict or rent is due?  Can you keep up with regular maintenance, collecting rent, paying taxes and manage your school work?  Do you have enough cash to purchase and maintain a house & could you make money on the purchase by the end of your college career?  These are just a few questions you could ask yourself to see if you are ready to take on the responsibilities of being a landlord.

A well respected student housing blogger, Bill Carey wrote a great article going into detail about this topic.  You can read his entire blog in Off Campus House - 7 Tips For College Students to Buy Your Own Off Campus House.

I can honestly say I can not recall any horror stories from my fellow student-landlord friends.  They all seemed to enjoy themselves and had a little extra cash on the side.  Some even continued to rent the house after they graduated!

We sat down with Reagan Amy at Campus Village Apartments at Kettering University and asked her a few questions about her experience with RateMyStudentRental.com as a property manager/landlord.  Check out the videos below!

Name One Thing You Like Most About RateMyStudentRental.com

What is Your Most Useful Tool on RateMyStudentRental.com

How does RateMyStudentRental.com Help with your Daily Job?

Last night I went up to Kettering University to assist with the Resident Assistants at Thompson Hall in an open discussion with freshman.  Our discussion covered topics related to off-campus life, how to find the right housing, what to expect and how to have a great and safe time!  The evening was fun and informational.  Overall the presentation was very similar to our February meeting which was re-capped in this blog post.

The students asked great questions, like:

Q: Will I have to sign an individual lease or will I have to sign a group lease and be accountable for my roommates actions?

My A: Of course this will vary from landlord to landlord and each lease is different so read carefully.  Some landlords do allow for individual leases to be singed, most have one lease the entire group signs.  Ultimately do your best to pick responsible roommates and respect the property.  If you have an issue with the way a landlord is handling his or her lease speak up.  From our experience many landlords are open to suggestions and with reasonable requests they will be accommodating to your needs or concerns.

And, a small tip, as a group do your best to build a relationship with the landlord through communication and respect.  When you promptly alert the landlords of issues with the house, pay rent on time, and are friendly, it makes getting that security deposit back at the end of the term/year a lot easier.

(That was a little bit longer that my real answer last night)

Q:  When landlords make major improvements to the house because of the responses left on RateMyStudentRental.com, does the rent increase as well?

My A: We have not seen that pattern of increasing rent due to major renovations or as a response to student comments on the website.  From my observations, the landlords are in a very competitive mode right now.  The good landlords, who care about their business and the students are working hard and investing in their properties to make a students experience more enjoyable and comfortable.  If they can provide housing that all the students want and they can achieve full capacity the landlords achieve their ROI most definitely.

Other tips for students in their search for housing…utilize the Student Watch List.  The student watch list is located on your home page when you log in as a student.  Here students can fill out a pretty simple form defining their needs for housing.  After it’s submitted if a rental becomes available that meets the needs of that student, an automated message is sent out alerting the student of the available rooms.  From that message students can communicate with landlords right on RateMyStudentRental.com to inquire about the available rooms.  We’re trying to make this process as simple as possible for students, landlords, and school officials.

If you are or your group is holding a meeting with students to discuss off-campus living, or how to search for housing or any other housing related meeting, the RateMyStudentRental.com team would be happy to join forces and share our knowledge with students.

We are collecting survey results from students to find out what are the important factors you consider when deciding on your next student rental.  If you have 3-5 minutes to spare please take the survey to help us understand your thought process. The results will help us help landlords provide student rentals that actually meet your needs!  Thank you so much for your time!

Here is the survey @ SurveyGizmo.com

Look on Facebook and you will see many of your friends counting down the days left of class or before they get to go home!  The week or so leading up to the last week of school all students can think about are finals and making the grade, then once finals are over students rush to pack their belongings or pack to head home for break.  As anxious as you may be to leave campus for a few weeks take a couple extra steps to assure you have done everything you can to keep your rental and remaining  possessions safe and sound.

Student rental areas are known by criminals and these criminals know when you will most likely be gone for the holidays as well as other typical student behavior.  To help you protect yourself, we’ve compiled some tips on keeping your rental and your stuff safe when you’re not at your rental, based off of our experiences and from some ‘experts’ (if you will):

1. Take you precious possessions with you!  If you have any items that you absolutely can’t replace or can’t have out on the streets, take it with you!  The rest of your possessions should be put away.  Keep in mind, when a thief is running through your house they are most likely to take what is in sight or easy to get to.  Putting things away or out of sight will give your items a greater chance to stick around.  This reminds me, any bags or back-packs laying around will be something the thief will use to stuff full of goodies, so put those away too.  If you have a safe, see if your can bolt it down to the floor in your closet, a locked safe that can be carried away won’t do you or your possessions any good.
2. Lock it up!  Before leaving, make sure all your windows and doors are locked in the rental, including deadbolt locks! Sometimes, locking windows will not stop a criminal from using a brick or rock to get into your house; the harder you make it for them to break into your house the less likely you will have problems.  Criminals move quick and try to go un-noticed.  If they have to draw attention to themselves by breaking a window, they may opt to try your neighbors with hopes they left a window unlocked.
3. Speaking of breaking windows…pick up around the rental, not only before break but at all times.  Any decent-sized loose rocks, tools, or other objects could be used to break a window.  Having those types of items around is just asking for trouble!
4. Closing all blinds will keep peeping Toms out and won’t tempt criminals when they see your TV, stereo, speakers, collection of CDs (who has those anymore with iPods), DVDs etc.
5. Remember the movie, Home Alone, when it looked like there was an entire Christmas party in the living room of the nearly vacant home?  That’s a bit extreme, but leaving a few lights on in different rooms may give the impression someone is home. You can always ask your landlord to invest in timers for lights in several of the rooms so that they only come on at dusk (as to not waste energy) and turn on and off in different rooms on different nights or through out the night, just in case someone is really keeping an eye on your pad.
6. Don’t leave trash and/or trash cans out at the road.  Setting trash out a few days early because you’re leaving for the week is a green flag for criminals, same as empty trash cans sitting by the road waiting for you to come home to take them back to the garage.  Tips:  If you’re going to miss trash day by a few days just let it build up until next time you come back or ask your landlord if they will come by and set out trash/pick up the cans.
7. Ask you landlord and campus safety to check on the house a couple times during the week.

You shouldn’t only be concerned about deterring criminals from your rental, but there are also a few other tips you can follow to be a responsible tenant:

1. Turn off and unplug unnecessary electronics or any appliances that may be pulling power.  This not only keeps the utility bill lower for you or your landlord, but it’s also a good way to be a little more green.
2. Turn the heat down, NOT off!  Keeping your house at a chilly 55 degrees Fahrenheit will keep pipes from freezing or bursting, which will make a huge mess of your house and either cost you or your landlord a lot of money.  Keeping your place at 55 degrees won’t cost much and it will keep everything in the house (except roommates/pets) at just the right temperature.

These are just a few tips I’ve compiled from experiences over time.  The best advice is use common sense and be aware of the possibilities. And, remember that your landlords should be just as concerned about keeping your rental safe from potential crime.  So, don’t hesitate to talk to your landlord and let them know when you and your roommates will be out of town.

Here is an enthusiastic review from one of our student users that we’d like to share with everyone! We love the students, with out you our site would be pretty lame and useless!

Just wanted to thank you for making this site. Me and my friends used
it this term to look for a house at Kettering. We found 625 Dupont on
here but were a little nervous when there were no pictures and one of
the reviews including saying there is a kegorator. The reviews were
really high though. Well after looking at a few other prospects we
decided to give this one a try anyway. We are so glad we did! The house
is in amazing condition and the landlord is extremely easy to work
with. I know we wouldn’t have found this house without your site! Thank
you so much with helping us out!

-jg32189

You walked across the stage, got your “temp” piece of paper saying you’ve successfully completed your education, maybe got a bit emotional (maybe not), and had your last hoo-rah with some of the best friends you’ve made over the last 4-5 years…

Then it’s real life, baby, and that can be a bit overwhelming!  I came acrosss a website/blog: GradSpot.com - Life After College. There are numerous guides here on everything from building a resume, dealing with the transition, finding post-college housing, and more.

Check them out, hopefully they could be helpful as you prepare to graduate!

Thanks to Twitter RateMyStudentRental.com made new friends this week, DormDelicious.  DormDelicious blogs about making your college experience well, more delicious.  Here is a little snippet from their About Us section:

DormDelicious provides dorm decor advice, decorating ideas, and organization tips. Read about college dorm decorating projects, and get helpful tips from other students for turning your new place into a more attractive space. DormDelicious is making the world more delicious one room at a time.

Overtime you may see some cross-posting between our blogs.  Andrew at DormDelicious was kind enough to blog about our services in ther blog  How To Find Delicious Off-Campus Housing.

Follow DormDelicious and RateMyStudentRental on Twitter today!

We’ve barely seen any snow on the ground and I am already asking you to think spring! It’s about that time to start thinking about housing for your next lease.  Especially for B-Section Kettering University students who are starting to think about housing for the spring term (April-June).  RateMystudentRental.com has some amazingly helpful tools for student’s and landlords as the fall term quickly comes to and end.

Students

Maybe your fall housing arrangements were temporary while you waited for your dear friends to return from their study abroad term, or maybe you were abroad yourself!  Or, maybe you just can’t stand your roommates anymore, or you’ve just had it with who-knows-what in the apartments or in the house.  Whatever the case is, RateMyStudentRental.com’s comprehensive database of rental’s is here to save you during the search.  Check us out to search for housing around campus and sort through your options by evaluating the ratings and reviews left by other students.  While you are there, rate your current (and past) rental(s) so that other students can benefit the same way you are benefiting from their ratings.

Tips For Students Looking For Housing:

• Cut your search time in half by looking for rentals who have been flagged as available or sublet needed.  To find rentals that have been flagged as available/sublet you can search the home page to see recent availabilities or you can use the search box. When using the search box, type in your school and select the “with room availabilities only” function.
• Create a Student Watch List (must be logged in as a student to view).  Let us know what your ideal student rental is by filling out the student watch list form.  When a rental is flagged as available that matches your criteria, we’ll alert you and you can contact the student or landlord who flagged the rental to make arrangements to move in.

If you are looking for a replacement roommate or you are finding someone to replace your spot in a rental you can flag a rental as sublet needed.  This will alert prospective students that you are looking for someone to fill a room or two in your current rental.  Instead of the prospective roommate contact the landlord directly, they can contact you.

Landlords

It’s really never too early to start seeking out student tenants for the upcoming term.  A survey conducted by Alfa Jango Software and Marketing helps RateMyStudentRental.com determine when student start looking for their next housing arrangements.  We asked students “How long before you need to move in, do you start looking for your next student housing arrangements?” Here are the results:

With those results, it’s clear to see right now is the prime time to start seeking out your tenants.  Reaching out to students can be difficult, but RateMyStudentRental.com has a feature that makes this necessary challenge, possible.  The Flag For Availability feature not only tells students you have available rooms but it also alerts students who have a Student Watch List created if your rental matches their criteria (number of rooms, rent price, distance from campus…etc).

Tips When Using The Flag For Availability:

• If you are a landlord at a school that has rotating semesters/quarters (like Kettering University who rotates students every 3 months) this tip is for you. If you have available rooms for both sections/terms, purchase the longest Flag - Next term, which stays active for 5 months.  You can use the description box in the flag to tell students how many rooms are avaiable during each term (and you can change this description as often as you would like during the life of the flag).

To all, good luck with house hunting and finishing and starting your next term.  Don’t forget to rate your work term housing too, we do that!  As always, contact us with any questions or comments.  We’re always looking for the next best way to make your life easier when it comes to student housing.

Spoiler Alert: A friend on Facebook for whom you’ve restricted access to your tagged Photos can view all of your tagged photos that have comments on them that were uploaded by you in albums that don’t also explicitly restrict access, despite what Facebook’s help dialog states.

Bonus: They can also see some of your Photo Albums from the new Facebook iPhone App (version 2.0). Be sure to set the privacy settings for each album you’ve uploaded to restrict access to your Limited Profile friend list.

We don’t normally write posts for this kind of thing, but I figured this information is important to anyone trying to keep a professional face on your Facebook presence for family and business contacts.

When setting up your Limited Profile, it is often the case that you want to restrict access to tagged photos of yourself. Of course it’s only natural that you’d want to keep Mom and Dad (who now use Facebook to stay in contact with you) from seeing that night (or girl) you don’t remember. Or maybe you don’t want an employer to see why you’re so tired every morning. Be warned, these privacy settings might not be as far-reaching as you think.

The screenshots below were taken while logged into my own account, but I was able to duplicate these steps while logged in as a friend who I had added to my Limited Profile. Someone on your Limited Profile can see all your tagged photos with comments in the following way:

1. Click on your Profile picture to view your Profile Pictures Album.
   

   Profile Photo Album

2. Click “View Comments” to view all of your profile pictures with comments.
   

   Profile Photo Comments

3. Click “See All Photo Comments” to see all of your tagged photos with comments.
   

   Photo Comments

That’s right, someone on your Limited Profile, which is set up to restrict access to tagged photos of yourself, can see all of your tagged photos that have comments. And of course, the photos with comments are going to be the most outrageous ones… that’s why they have comments.

My Privacy Settings

Did I miss something here? I highly suggest adding a close friend to your Limited Profile and asking them to let you take your profile for a spin from their account to make sure everything is in order.

Update:

I added a few more people to my Limited Profile to get more verification, and my buddy (Joe Minock over at WhatUNeedLocal) just found that once you do Step 3, you can then click “Back to Steve’s Photos” and see ALL of my tagged photos on Facebook. I repeat, Joe, who is restricted from seeing my photos, can see ALL of my photos on Facebook. see all tagged photos of me that are in my own photo albums if the album isn’t specifically set to restrict access to the Limited Profile.

Update 2:

This is apparently not a flaw in programming, but a flaw in the copy of the Privacy Settings description for tagged photos. Facebook says:

Tagged Photos

Use this control to decide who can see the list of photos of you that you or your friends have tagged.

Despite what Facebook says, however, this does not include photos in which you’ve been tagged that are in your own albums that don’t explicitly also restrict access to the Limited Profile in the album’s privacy settings.