First Deal: SFR or Student Rental?? - Brainstorming

[Julie Kern]

We have a contract on our first deal as of today (see http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/88/topics/1548... for details).

Our original plan was to rent this out as a SFR. But over the last 24 hours, I started wondering if we should consider positioning this property as a student rental. The house is a 3/2 that is 2.5 miles from Kennesaw State University (third-largest university in Georgia and one of the fastest growing). I have read some threads here on BP about student rentals and I'm aware there are pro's and con's.

I've been brainstorming ideas about this and thought I would turn to the BP community for help.  Here are a few of my thoughts/questions.  Please jump in with any advice, opinions, etc.

• Rent by the room (individual lease) - pros/cons?
• If we rent by the room how should we expect a PM to charge fees - based on total rent of all rooms at 100% occupancy, or by the room?  Obviously, the latter would be preferred but I'm not sure of standard practice - or is it negotiable?
• New Non-university student housing (off campus) for a 3 bed/3bath apartment rents for $650 - $680 PER tenant.  This includes a fully furnished apartment with flat screen TV, sofa/love seat, full kitchen with upgrades, desk/bed in each room with walk-in closets in each room.  Also includes a shuttle to/from KSU, a large swimming pool and a big social scene.  However, having toured one of these with my daughter who goes to the university, they are already in ROUGH shape and are only a few years old.  Management seems to be non-existent and the apartments are party-central, which was big reason we ended up going with a regular apartment for my daughter and her roommate.  These apartments are basically unsupervised dorms.
• Given the above - to what extent might we model our rental after these apartments - provide some furniture (sofa, love seat, kitchen table), include utilities, TV, etc.?  One appealing aspect of these apartments when we considered them is that they were move in ready and we could sign individual leases.  The negative was that they had horrible reviews online because of the way they are managed, and it was evident from seeing them in person that the reviews were dead-on.
• Any input on what to charge per room, if we end up going that route?  One room is a master with bath.  The other two rooms/tenants would share the 2nd bathroom (where the washer/dryer is currently located - could be an issue).
• Co-ed or single sex?  Or do we run in to any fair housing issues if we specify a single gender?
• City ordinances/codes etc? There is no HOA so that wouldn't be a concern.

I would love to hear feedback.  We are meeting with the contractor tomorrow and how we position this rental could impact our rehab decisions.