College Town Rentals and COVID

[Bobby Vernazza]

Hello Fellow BPer's!

As we move further and further away from what "normal" life used to be like just a short year ago, I am curious as to if any college town landlords have felt any repercussions in student applications. I have a few rentals in Corvallis, OR and they have mainly been rented by students over the years, yet I have slowly transitioned from undergrads to grads. Currently most of the tenants are graduate students, lab assistants or just your average person working the 9-5. However, I did have one vacancy this past June that needed to be filled and 90% of the applicants were not students. The past few years it was mainly undergrad students applying for the property. I am curious if other landlords are having the same result due to the uncertainty that colleges will be online or not next year and the concern about the spread of COVID on campuses.