Making student housing single sex or co-ed?

Question

They just accepted our offer.  A large house next to a huge university.  We will renovate it and turn it into student housing.  5-6 bedrooms.

Single sex or co-ed?  Always rented to families.  Never students before.  Advantages and disadvantages?

Tim S. · Answer

Rent it by the house, not by the room, let them self select the group they want to live with.

Jeremy Holcomb · Answer

Women are more likely to be targeted by criminals than men. It also holds true for an all female household versus a coed household.

Lam N. · Answer

Or not excluding heteros but advertise the space as lgbt? Decorate the place as such.

Tim S. · Answer

Excluding heterosexuals would be discriminatory and illegal wouldn’t it?

Lam N. · Answer

What do you mean about security purposes?

Jeremy Holcomb · Answer

I’ve owned student housing in the past. I prefer coed for security purposes. I have also found when you have coed there are less problems overall.

Lam N. · Answer

Bolded paragraph.

I just had an idea.  What if we make this into an lgbt type of housing for lgbt students?  It really does have a lot of space for activities and stuff, not to mention a large balcony in front on the second floor.  We plan on modernizing the bathrooms and make it into a nice living space.  There is a large dining room and 2 living rooms.  Also a little storage room that we will convert into a laundry room.

Back in college, I would have killed to be able to live in an lgbt exclusive living space like this.

Daniella Sanchez · Answer

Hi Lam, can you gauge how difficult it would be to split up the house and rent out separate apartments? You will make more money renting out 3bd + 1bd + 2bd... rather than renting out a 6 bedroom. Finding 6 students who want to room together may be more difficult than finding 3 students, 1 student and 2 students...

I lived in a 1 bedroom apartment in a 6 apartment house. It was a HUGE, old victorian single family home that the realty company split into 6 apartments. Here are some other things to consider:

I don't know what university this is, but if you rent out the entire house you could attract fraternities or sororities. This isn't a blanket statement, but many of these groups like to host events, party and might not take good as care of the house and individual tenants.

Generally the rule of thumb for university students is: the more people you room with the cheaper the rent. So from your perspective the more you split up the bedrooms the greater the chance you have of profiting.

And lastly, another BPer mentioned this but more than likely you will be told it is unlawful to select your tenants based on gender. This would be considered gender discrimination.

Hope this helps and good luck!

Daniella

Peter Roehrich · Answer

Speak to your attorney. You may not be able to restrict it to a particular sex.

Making student housing single sex or co-ed?

Most Popular Reply