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.

RateMyStudentRental.com is developing a new School Partnership Program to allow schools to manage on-campus and off-campus rentals, using RateMyStudentRental’s database of rental housing information. This system will also allow school officials to communicate with students and landlords through the site about rental needs and area-specific safety bulletins and announcements.

Schools that join the School Partnership Program will be able to easily host rental reviews and information and communicate through their own domain (e.g. http://rentals.kettering.edu or http://www.kettering.edu/housing). The interface and information will be the same as that of RateMyStudentRental.com, with three major differences:

1. Rental and contact information will only be shown for the School Partner.
2. The website will be branded for the School Partner.
3. School admins will be able to moderate the information and reviews that are displayed to students and landlords.

If your school is interested in becoming a school partner, contact us, email schools@ratemystudentrental.com, or call 810-275-0403 for more information.