Trouble Renting Out Student Apartments

[Chris G.]

Just moved up positions in a small locally owned property management company. We manage around 120 properties and about 25 of those being in Gainesville a popular college town. Most of the properties there are 4b4b or 4b2b shared living areas. We rent by bedroom mainly. For example a few units have 3/4 bedrooms rented and another has 1/4 rented. We really only base it off gender so female only and male only units. The trouble I been finding is we have about 20/70 bedrooms vacant. I been adverting on zillow and our website but doesn't seem to drive much traffic. Usually I'm reaching out to leads or people multiple times to see if their still interested. Not sure if it's due to the students not wanting random roommates or they are just lower end apartment complexes. They have built very nice ones the past few years around here that look like resorts and ours are most basic. They do come furnished so that is a plus and utilities is paid by the owner. We have them listed at 400-450 a month which is fair price and cheapest in the area and an entire unit 4b2b listed for 1600. Not really sure what else to do or maybe it's just the down season for students or families right now. Any ideas would be helpful. 

[Brett G.]

@Chris Geer

What is the typical rental calendar cycle in your area? In my area, we show properties and sign leases in January for the next school year. Leases run from May-April. Any time outside of that, there are very few students looking for places.

What if you marketed more properties to groups of 4 (or however many bedrooms the property has). A lease where they are each individually and wholly responsible for the rent. Some folks do lease by the room, we, however, do not. Putting a group of friends in a property together has worked for us. So far, I have been able to collect 100% rent for our student rentals, even when a person has left early.