Off Campus College Housing

[Brian Mitchell]

Hi All,

I am considering a purchase of a single family home which, most recently, was used as off campus college housing.  The Town considers this a Single Family, as opposed to a Boarding House, and will allow the owner to have one lease going for the tenancy.  The Codes Department says they are OK with multiple signatures on the lease, however, it must be one lease.  In other words, if I purchased the property I couldn't create 6 separate leases for the 6 total bedrooms.

Questions for the BP Community....  Has anyone experienced this form of leasing before?  One of my concerns is the annual turnover rate given the changing School Years.  How would a landlord go about attracting new tenants?  I would think Craigslist would be a start, but what else?

The college charges around $6,800/year ($755/month) for student housing, per student.  My numbers for this property based on this and area rents have each room going for $700/month which would include electric, cable, internet, water, and sewer. 

The college has an initiative going to try to keep as many students houses on campus as possible, they are building new dorms to help with that.  I have a call into Student Housing to learn more about the initiative as well as the future of Off Campus Housing.  This could tell me a lot.

Who has experience in this type of lease agreement?  The numbers seem to work.

Thank you!

Brian

[Peter Tverdov]

I manage 30+ units of student housing by Rutgers University in NJ. This is how every Lease is done (or should be done). They're all jointly and severally liable for rent. If you need to put a group together that's a little different, but they still all end up on one Lease. It's not a big deal.