Temple University housing for students

[Joe P.]

Thinking of buying a property near Temple University. Just curious if anyone is involved in student housing and how that may be better/worse/different than renting to standard tenants?

I think the primary thing is require co-signing from parents. But do the properties do worse with perhaps rotating student tenants, they're young, etc...so would my CAPEX need to be significantly higher than normal?

Just looking to see what people think of that area of properties/tenants and anything I should be aware of.

[Andrew Johnson]

@Joe P. So I’m not a “rent by the room” guy.  Two of my small apartment buildings are close to a campus so I get student tenants.  Not 100% but some.  I have nicer units so they have to make a decision to trade “beer money for a nicer apartment”.  Many of the houses just off campus are a lot more “abused” than my units.  So you really have to upgrade/maintain to whatever your desire is.  

A lot of “by the room” landlords add things like furnishing and pay for cable/internet.  As well, of course, as utilities.  They build it into the rent so Tom doesn’t argue with Ed about who is responsible for a high hot water bill or going over their data cap.  

Either way, I didn’t want to be that “high touch” or have my PM be that “high touch”.  So we just rent the 2/1.5 or 3/2 units to college students who group up themselves.  Yes, parents are co-signers but we aren’t gettIng into the details of “Do Jenny pay $50/month more to get the master bedroom?”