Student rental process

[Eric Campbell]

Hi Everyone, long time lurker, first time poster.  I recently purchased a 6 bedroom/2200 sq ft. house near a small university in our town. The contractor that bought renovated it himself with the thought of putting college kids in there. He needed money on other projects however, so I was able to get it on the cheap. I have only rented to families before, and planned to do so with this house as well. Problem is, families have balked at the house so far (I've even had one lady tell me my house was "too big", and she had 4 kids!! What??). I have however had groups of college kids want to rent since it's so close to campus. I've never done the student rental thing before. All the general applications and leases that I use are designed with SFHs in mind, and are 2 or 3 page leases. I had someone at a recent landlord assoc. meeting show me their kid's student housing lease, and it was 30 pages! I thought about just copying that lease and changing the relevant information.

I guess what I'm really wanting to know is the logistics of all this. How do those of you that have student rentals go about your application/lease process? Do you have one application & lease per student? Do you make the parents co-sign the lease? If so, do they need to be on the app as well (and do you request SSN/copy of driver's license/etc)? Also, where do you get these forms at, or do you just make them yourself? How do you do your payments, do you take a check from each student, or do you request just one rent check for the entire residence? I didn't know how it would work out if you were getting multiple checks and one of the students didn't pay. It would seem easier with receiving just one rent check, and let them collect from each other. How do you handle utilities? Let them apply and pay, or do you do an all-inclusive? My house has city water/sewer, natural gas and electricity. I thought about doing an all-inclusive, but I don't want people to think they can run the heat up to 80 degrees in the winter, and the AC down to 65 in the summer. Not to mention you'd have to provide TV/internet on an all inclusive deal. What happens if they steal the cable modem/TV box? Take it out of the deposit I assume, but those things are expensive. 

Sorry for all the questions, this deal kind of fell in my lap and I felt I had to jump on it. The student rental thing seems far more lucrative than a standard SFH that I could have purchased for the same price. Even a nice 4 bedroom house with a garage might get me 75% of the gross rent that this place could get me. Any advice/suggestions welcome. Thank you!