Each year Michigan State University holds a housing fair for students to learn about housing on campus, tricks to getting housing, and they meet some of the landlords.  The State News writes about the 2008 Fall Housing Fair that took place Oct. 16th in the Union building at MSU.  Click here for the entire article.  It appears students had a positive reaction to the overall fair.

Good luck house hunting students, wish www.RateMyStudentRental.com could have been there!  We were invited then un-invited, but looking back, we should have gone anyways!

And, remember to rate your current and past properties on www.RateMyStudentRental.com and tell your friends to as well.  Spread the word and maybe you will find your prospective rental on our site to prevent getting screwed (in a rental sense).

I got an email today and thought I would share it with our ‘green’ students out there.  The National Wildlife Federation’s Campus Ecology program is running a contest on college campuses across the country.  This would be a great chance for groups on campus to talk about what you are doing and have a chance to win some grants, prizes, and recognition! Here are some details:

ENTER AND WIN TO TAKE THE SPOTLIGHT!

Students are making a difference on campus around the country. Students raise awareness, put pressure on the administration and make a real difference in their communities. Tell the nation how you are making a difference on your campus and in your community.

Chill Out: Campus Solutions to Global Warming is the nation’s only competition recognizing colleges and universities for their efforts to solve global warming. And we’re looking for the best campus-based projects in clean energy, energy efficiency, transportation, habitat restoration, waste reduction and more.

YOU CAN ENTER TO WIN TWO WAYS

1. Write a 500-word essay describing your school’s efforts.
2. Create an original three-minute video about your project and upload it to http://www.gogreentube.com/.

Entries are due by November 30 for your chance to win:

• Grant Money
• Prizes
• National Publicity

Students, faculty and staff are eligible to win!

For contest rules and entry form, go to

http://www.campuschillout.org

On a side note.

Speaking of Eco-Friendly students…the Interns at Ingenex blog almost daily about their experience in the digital world and tips for fellow students. It’s a great resource (and they are awesome students).  You can also follow them on twitter: @ecointernship.

It’s that time of year you dread. Spending ungodly amounts on textbooks for classes. Our fellow classmate and entrepreneur from Kettering University has come up with a comprehensive solution to make buying all of your 20 credits worth of (used or new) text books quick and easy.

BookDealFinder.com allows students to search for books by ISBN, Author, Title, or Keyword. BookDealFinder.com then crawls book listing sites such as Amazon.com, abebooks.com, etc. Numerous results appear and you can compare prices in one search. Registered users can save their books in a backpack, which is like a shopping cart, until you are ready to purchase.

Buying all of your text books through BookDealFinder.com will not only save you a couple bucks, but it will save you time and headache, a lot of it. Get organized this fall with BookDealFinder.com .

Flint, Michigan has not had a great reputation for quite a while. Recently, a college town initiative has been sweeping across the area between Kettering University, Mott Community College, Baker College and University of Michigan – Flint. In an earlier blog ‘Is Flint Turning into a College Town?’ I talked more about this initiative and what’s going on in Flint.

However, things are starting to change for the city of Flint and the four universities and colleges that consider Flint home. The University of Michigan – Flint reports in The Michigan Times that their enrollment is up 5.5% year-over-year. Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Jack Kay contributes this increase to the aggressive recruitment strategy. Some feel that the increase in enrollment is also a result of the new freshman residence hall. The new residence hall houses 300 out of town, out of state, and international students. Before the residence hall, students had limited options for housing around U of M – Flint. There are a handful of student rentals, such as this well kept rental and this highly-rated rental whcih are both very close to U of M Flint’s campus. What’s up Downtown, an organization dedicated to Downtown Flint, has information about apartments and lofts downtown available for students to rent.

There are a lot of positive changes and I am excited to see them develop right in front of us. If you are a student at U of M Flint, tell us about your housing options. By rating and reviewing your housing on RateMyStudentRental.com you can help contribute to the Ultimate Student Housing Tool and do your part to build the student housing community.

When I was choosing a school, education was my top reason for picking Kettering University.. It was there I learned that the party/social scene was a big benefit too. Although very different from our neighbors at Michigan State University. and the University of Michigan, at Kettering University we made the best of what we were working with!

So whether you choose to go to school for the prestigious classes or the sunny-day-front-lawn-cold-beverage experience (if it’s before noon may I recommend a fruit smoothie?) you should check out the top 20 list that The Princeton Review published. They surveyed 120,000 students to help rank the below schools.

If none of these schools are on your list of potential universities at least keep them in mind, make some new friends, and visit one weekend for the experience! Talk about an ultimate road trip; stop by each of these 20 universities!

1. University of Florida - Gainesville, Fla.
2. University of Mississippi - University, Miss.
3. Penn State University - State College, Pa.
4. West Virginia University - Morgantown, W.Va.
5. Ohio University - Athens, Ohio.
6. Randolph-Macon College - Ashland, Va.
7. University of Georgia - Athens, Ga.
8. University of Texas - Austin, Texas.
9. University of California-Santa Barbara - Santa Barbara, Calif.
10. Florida State University - Tallahassee, Fla.
11. University of New Hampshire - Durham, N.H.
12. University of Iowa, Iowa City - Iowa.
13. University of Colorado - Boulder, Co.
14. Indiana University - Bloomington, Ind.
15. Tulane University - New Orleans, La.
16. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign - Urbana, Ill.
17. Arizona State University - Tempe, Ariz.
18. University of Tennessee - Knoxville, Tenn.
19. University of Alabama - Tuscaloosa, Ala.
20. Loyola University-New Orleans - New Orleans, La.

So, tell us some of your best party stories. And, why don’t we try to get a Michigan school on the list next year!

Turning Flint into a college town takes each and every student

At Kettering University’s June 2008 Commencement ceremony (yes, all of the RateMyStudentRental team was there!) the students, proud parents, and faculty heard the announcement that Third Avenue was going to now be known as University Avenue! That is definitely a step in the right direction for the depressed town we know as Flint, MI.

Flint, MI is home to several Universities and Colleges including: Kettering University (formerly General Motors Institute) , University of Michigan - Flint , Mott Community College ,and Baker College . But, at the same time, while thousands of students support the local economy, Flint’s educational institutions are forgotten and a negative reputation is still being supported by the unemployment, boarded up buildings, and bizarre crimes.

Many are sick of the bad news and have finally stepped up to do something positive. A group of inspired students and professionals have joined efforts and have put together a proactive group called the Flint College Town Initiative. From the Kettering Chapter’s Facebook group , the group states that :

“The Flint College Town Initiative is a joint effort between Kettering University, University of Michigan- Flint, Mott Community College, Baker College, and the Flint Institute of Arts to change Flint’s face from an old industrial town to a newer and younger College Town. There are currently over 30,000 students who attend higher level education institutions within the City of Flint, yet we (as students) are the most under served population. It is our goal to change that! The College Town Student Advisory Committee meets on a monthly basis to focus our efforts to create a sense of community among all college students in Flint. This group is intended to be Kettering University’s official student voice for those meetings.

But, why should we care if Flint turns into a college town? Most of us, as students, will probably be out of the city before anything gets done! Below are just a few reasons why we should all contribute the the movement of giving Flint a college town mentality:

• Your College’s reputation is on the line! If you college or university drops in enrollment and programs have to get cut for the institution to survive then the reputation of the university may decline and the name on your degree might loose it’s power.
• Future students will appreciate the change! Your little sister could be coming to one of Flint’s colleges and something might be changed by the time she gets here. You want her to be safe and have a great experience, don’t you?
• Improved local economy. Businesses in Flint are already starting to give their store’s make-overs and new businesses are slowly coming in. This will only happen faster. Students will be provided better service and offered better products as a result.
• Campus and community beautification. If we all get in the college town mood and start expecting to live like we were in a college town we would see cleaner grounds, improved buildings and better student housing.

You can start to join these other students and join their Facebook group or ask around campus of how you can get involved. Sounds like the Flint College Town Initiative group is coming up with some big events and we’ll do our best to keep you posted on them.

When we have reached the point that Flint is a college town, students will have things to do, places to go and reasons to come to Flint in the first place! Do your part, serve the community, and watch it give back!

In my earlier blog Out of the Dorms and Into Life (A Guide to Finding the Best Place to Live in College) I identified six steps to finding college housing that works for you and your lifestyle.

• Start Counting Your Benjamins!
• What Are Your Gotta-Have-Its?
• Can’t Live With Them, Can’t Live With-Out Them! (Roommates)
• So, Which Place Should I Choose?
• Commit Already!
• Live It Up!

Over the next few months I will be adding a new blog that talks a little more about each step so you can get a better understanding of the step.

Start Counting Your Benjamins!

Originally I wrote:

First, and most important to most students, is the cost of the rent. Hopefully as a student you have some sort of budget in mind for the next 4-5 years of your college career. Finding a place that is within your budget should not be too hard. Also, keep in mind that the theory that “you get what you pay for” isn’t always true with student housing; we’ll get into that a little later.

Creating Your Budget & Managing Your Money

Now that you are a college student chances are you are fully enjoying the college experience which consists of more play and less work (after all your homework is done of course)! So, how do we have fun playing with out worry And, if you are working, super – this gives you more reason to manage your money, because you have more to manage.

Establishing a budget is pretty easy, it’s the part where you have to follow your budget that requires a little more self-discipline. Start off by determining your income and expenses.

It is easiest to break down your income and expenses on a month to month basis. Income is fairly easy to identify, since the main source is usually from a job, either full or part time.

Predicting your expenses should take a little thought and effort. For most accurate budgets, look at the last few months of your expenses, how much did you spend on the following activities/items (just to name a few):

• Tuition
• Rent
• Utilities: phone, internet
• Auto: gas, insurance, service
• Groceries
• Dining
• “going out”
• Entertainment:movies, sports
• Shopping: clothing, gadgets
• Emergency money!

Once you have identified and categorized some of your expenses you should prioritize them. What expenses can and should you try to trim? Which expenses are critical to your survival; like entertainment, no one likes to be bored! Just kidding, more like the food and shelter, those play a huge factor in your success in the classroom.

After you are comfortable with your priority and estimates for income and expenses you can compare the two.

Income & Expenses = +/-

If you are in the negative, maybe you should play with your numbers a bit until they look reasonable and calculate to be closer to a positive number, or at least zero!

When your budget looks like it works for you, pay attention to what you allocated for your housing or rent. Rental prices range across the country, ask around and do a little research on campus to find the averages of student housing, you can also use RateMyStudentRental (yeah, another plus, can you blame me, it’s a sweet site!) to filter rental results on your campus by price and check out the ratings and review from other students, is there any correlation between price and quality on your campus? Watch out for the great deals and landlords who have great reviews, a great rental, and an affordable monthly rent.

Using tools like Wasabe (who have a reputation for holding true to their Privacy Policy can help manage your budget and personal finances.

Being smart with your money is important. Keep the following tips in mind about how to spend your money:

• Try to avoid using credit cards.
• If you must use a credit card, pay it off each bill cycle.
• Have your weekly spending allowance in cash and only spend that…when it’s gone, even it is Wednesday…wait until Monday to get more cash.
• Pay bills (cell phone, rent, credit card) as soon as the statement comes out so that you are not tempted to spend the money else where.

Reviewing your budget:

If you took the time to put a budget together than you are one step ahead of most. You budget will be most effective if you can stick to it and review how well you are doing. I use Quicken software and each month I input all of my expenses and categorize them (food, auto, clothing, entertainment….etc). Quicken lets you run reports and see how much you have in each category and it also reports income. You can see many different reports and graphs of your financials. This is a good monthly review, compare it to your budget and see where you need to or can reduce or increase spending.

And, I would be doing my Financial Markets Professor wrong if I didn’t encourage you to put a little bit of money away into investments now. Whether stock markets (short term and risky) or mutual funds (long term and less risky), we are young as students and can benefit greatly by getting in the habit of investing now.

Happy Budgeting!

Upperclassman Grudge

You walk into your buddy’s apartment and you instantly know you’re standing in a good-enough-for-college-kids apartment. The makeshift bedroom walls are made out of leftover pieces of drywall with exposed seams. And the kitchen is made up of randomly assembled leftover cabinets, located with absolutely no rhyme or reason. The patchwork carpet remnants have seen better days, but do match the threadbare couches. Well matching at least in the sense that they’re all pretty crappy.

This mentality is dated. Of course some students will settle. You know, the Animal House types that just don’t care, but most students desire and have come to expect a little more. Living in good-enough-for-college-kids apartments is fun for a year, maybe two, but the fact is that students are spending more and more time in college. As the years pass, maturity increases and students are willing to pay you a little more for a quality place to call home for a while.

So what do students want?

Think home, minus the parents. Students today want you to give them fresh paint on the walls, crisp clean carpet, and a kitchen that has decent appliances. Students want a nice bathroom, and larger bedrooms. Often with upperclassmen you’ll find that five people in a house is too many. Finding two or three friends that you can live with is better than packing in five or six. That charm of the early college days wears thin after awhile and everyone is happier with more privacy.

So why should a landlord care?

You will reap the benefits of supplying premium housing to these students because these students are willing to pay more. A quality place to live is desirable to students, with fewer headaches for you and it will ultimately result in more cash flow. You will find that students are much more likely to respect a nice, well finished apartment than they do the good enough ones so you will be less likely to have to make expensive repairs.

Of course, there will always be a need for good enough, and the rentals will always be available, but the fact is there’s a growing and expanding market for higher quality, higher priced rentals. Those of you who make the leap, leaving good-enough-for-college-kids apartments behind will find yourselves in new territory. But that territory will have you feeling the benefits and tucking more cash in your billfold.

Blake just wrote an excellent article called “A Safe Home is a Happy Home (well, it helps anyway)” with some very insightful tips on not getting your stuff stolen. His post mentions that Flint is consistently in the top 5 most dangerous cities in the US. Now, to be fair, there are some that say you should take these rankings with a grain of salt. But, as Blake’s article mentions, we have seen many of our friends get their stuff stolen, so I thought I’d tell a couple funny (in a tragic sense) stories of our friends who found themselves no longer in possession of their possessions.

The Opposite of a Parting Gift: the Parting Take-Away

I have this one buddy, whose name escapes me at the moment, who decided after a year of going to school in Flint, that it wasn’t for him anymore. He had just been accepted into another school elsewhere that started a few weeks after Kettering’s semester. So a few weeks in, he packed up his stuff, ready to move out Sunday, but decided to first have one last hurrah Friday and Saturday night. It was like his last week of break all over again. But this was something more. It was like “no worries” partying coupled with a “screw you, Flint” attitude.

Unfortunately, he didn’t plan on Flint answering right back to the screw you part. When he got back from partying Friday night, he found that his house had been broken into. His desktop computer, which he had all nicely packed and stacked, was gone, along with his guitar. He had unwittingly done half the burglar’s job and made everything he owned easy to haul out of the window and back to the thief’s evil lair (that’s how I imagine thieves to be, don’t you?).

Needless to say, his attitude for Saturday’s night of debauchery had changed from “screw you, Flint” to “drown my sorrows in alcohol.” Tough break, but such is the stigma of Flint.

At least the Thief Smells Good

Sometimes, you just have to wonder what was going through someone’s head… I have another really good friend, Jim, who had an interesting experience getting his house broken into one night.

It’s not hard to imagine the panic that goes through one’s mind and takes control of your senses when you come home to realize that your sanctuary has been broken into. But try to imagine the confusion when you are filing the police report, and giving answers like this:

Police: Sir, what is the most valuable item missing from the house?

Jim: Um, that would be the Xbox (aside: this is pre-Xbox 360 era)

Police: No laptops, computers, or jewelry were stolen?

Jim: No sir, all of that is still there.

Police: Was anything else stolen?

Jim: Yes… my deodorant.

Police: I’m sorry?

Jim: My Old Spice deodorant was stolen.

Police: Um, are you sure you didn’t just misplace it?

Jim: Yes, and you can definitely tell the burglar was in the bathroom. He stole my deodorant.

Police: And what was the value of this deodorant?

Jim: Well, it was less than half used. Probably $2 I guess…

Looking at the bright side though, at least the burglar would smell good for when he invited his hot date over to his evil lair to play his new Xbox. Only in Flint.

When selecting a rental, many students often ignore the safety factor. Sure the front door has a lock, and maybe even a deadbolt, but how safe are you really? Some of you have the benefit of being in a safe environment while attending school, but all of us at RateMyStudentRental chose Flint, MI to attend college. Maybe you don’t know, but Flint is consistently in the top five most dangerous cities by population. Think of it like this, we have one of the highest chances of being victim of a violent crime in the country. I guess some might consider us authorities on security.

So, after witnessing MANY of our friends having their houses and cars broken into, here are a few tips we’ve come up with to keep in mind when scoping out your place.

When selecting a rental, many students often ignore the safety factor. Sure the front door has a lock, and maybe even a deadbolt, but how safe are you really? Some of you have the benefit of being in a safe environment while attending school, but all of us at RateMyStudentRental chose Flint, MI to attend college. Maybe you don’t know, but Flint is consistently in the top five most dangerous cities by population. Think of it like this, we have one of the highest chances of being victim of a violent crime in the country. I guess some might consider us authorities on security.

So, after witnessing MANY of our friends having their houses and cars broken into, here are a few tips we’ve come up with to keep in mind when scoping out your place.

The Weak Points: Doors and Windows

Of course your property has locks on the doors and windows, but what condition are they in? A wooden door in a wooden frame simply won’t cut it. First off, chances are it won’t be thermally acceptable. Security-wise a swift kick or strong shoulder and an intruder is standing in your living room ogling your Playstation and plasma trying to figure how it’s going to fit through the door he just busted down. Wooden door frames splinter, and wooden doors break. It’s a fact, steel is stronger than wood, so why wouldn’t you want your deadlock secured in a steel casing in order to hold your steel door shut?

Windows unfortunately are windows. Unless you have unsightly bars, which incidentally scream “BAD NEIGHBORHOOD” windows are a weak point. Still each should have a working locking mechanism.

The Alarm System

Alarms are important, but what kind does your prospective rental have (or does it even have one at all)? Some alarms are self contained noise makers, and obviously only minimally effective. There are perimeter alarms which have sensors on each door and window and often have motion sensors as well. Additionally, utilizing a service such as ADT to monitor your alarm and notifying police when the alarm is activated greatly increases your safety and reduces your risk of a break in.

If you live in a bad part of town like we do, finding a rental with a security system can be well worth the effort and money. The first time a thief breaks in and steals your computer, you’ll wish you had shelled out the extra $50/month for that place down the street that had ADT. Trust us.

“Security” Lighting

Here’s one that is quite counter intuitive. Most students and landlords believe that a “security light”,one that lights up the dark areas around a house when motion is detected, deters would be burglars. Actually, the exact opposite is true! It seems these things light up so often, that no one pays attention to them anymore. Burglars realize this, and actually use the lights to their advantage; you’re actually illuminating one of the weakest points of your house and making it easy for the thief to see what they’re doing.

Safe Parking

This one can be difficult to secure because many times you’re stuck with what is available. Property enhancements often don’t extend to the yard and driveway for student rentals and you may even have to park in the street. Good lighting is a common desire, but I urge you to remember what was said previously. More importantly for safe parking is an open area. If there are no places for an assailant to hide, then a surprise attack will likely be avoided.

Wherever you park, one good tip is to keep all valuables out of sight. Even not-so-valuables should be hidden. We’ve had friends whose cars were broken into, the CD’s were left (after all, who listens to CD’s anymore?), and all the change from their cup holder was taken!

Bonus Tip: The “Student Rental” Sign

This is one that a lot of people may not think about, but we’ve seen what a difference this makes here in Flint. The “Student Rental” sign in the window or out in the front yard is like an X on a treasure map to burglars. If “Student Rental Sign” were in the Burglar Dictionary (assuming there was such thing as a Burglar Dictionary), here is what it’d say:

Student Rental Sign (noun):

A sign posted on an otherwise unassuming rental property indicating the presence of many valuables, and often cutting edge electronic equipment, inside that rental.

Be weary of rentals that are known for having this sign (even if the landlord takes it down now, chances are the burglars already know). And if your rental already has this sign, demand that it be taken down now (it can’t hurt).

Do you have anymore suggestions or tips? We’d love to hear them in the comments.