Making the Rent

Apartments in college towns are always in high demand and the rent is always expensive even with a roommate or two to share the burden. There are however other alternatives to renting near campus.

The most obvious solution would be to live in the dorms. Living in a double, triple, or quad can dramatically decrease your living expenses and living on campus means that your may get scholarships and grants to pay your rent. Basic utilities will be covered and services like phone, cable, and high speed internet are often available for mere dollars. Your dorm may also include meal plans in their rental agreements.

However, if you don't like the noisy crowded environment of the dorms or if the thought of having to share a bathroom with an entire floor where you must wear flip flops to the shower and there are always mysterious chunks of food in the sinks makes you want to douse yourself with bleach then you may want to consider renting off campus. If you are renting anywhere within walking distance of your school, then beware of extremely high rent, slumlords, and apartments that are often falling apart.

The first problem is easily solved. Consider rooming with a friend or get a large group of people together and rent out an entire house. Another tactic would be to wait until fall until school is about to (or already has) started. By that time, the landlords are more than willing to negotiate a lower price just to avoid having an unrented unit for the year. Make sure that utilities like water, heat, and gas are included in the rent. These are the three most expensive utilities, especially heat for those of us in the northern states. Heating bills can add up to more than a hundred dollars a month during the winter.

Another problem is that the landlords who control the properties near campus are often all too willing to take advantage of naive students. Always do your own due diligence about your potential landlord before signing anything! You should ask the other tenants at the property about the landlord, the condition of the building, responsiveness to problems, etc. Google them to see if there are any complaints on apartment review sites. See if your school website has a housing review directory like http://www.msa.umich.edu/housing/. Make sure to ask if pets are allowed, is there parking available, is there a laundry room, is there a storage locker, what kinds of problems will maintenance fix, do they even provide any kind of maintenance...

The cheapest option if you choose to live off campus (other than living at home of course) is probably to live in a city or two away from school. Apartments farther away from campus are often larger, in better condition, properly managed, have less drunk students, safer, quieter, and cheaper. You could further cut costs by finding a roommate from school and carpooling. However, if you choose to live that far away from school, you'll also have to factor in the costs of car payments, gas, and parking.

With all that said, just how much of your budget should you spend on rent? You should definately aim for no more than 30 to 40 percent of your expected income from financial aid, savings, and other sources of income. An ideal amount would be 100 to 300 dollars a month and absolutely no more than 500 dollars a month unless you've got a steady dependable source of income.

Technorati : apartments, budgeting, housing, living expenses, rent