Housing Advice, Student Life

How to decide between on or off campus housing

We know it’s a big decision to make whether or not to live off campus, and we hope to be able to guide you through the decision process.  There are a few major questions to ask yourself when you are looking at the two options and seeing which is right for you.

First you have to look at the costs associated with both.  If cost is important to your decision (which for a lot of people it is) you have to make a list of all the costs that both options would entail.  For on campus housing you would need to look at the cost of the actual housing, meal plans if you would need one, and any other board fees associated with being on campus.  For off campus housing, you need to consider the actual rent (this is going to involve some research, rents vary greatly between areas), the utilities (if they are not included) and other costs such as furniture, internet, cable, parking, groceries, and transportation costs to get to campus, etc.  Once you are able to estimate the costs of both options, you will have a better feel for which option will be more viable for you.

Other things to consider when looking at the two options are what you are getting for your money.  If you are getting a tiny room in a dorm and you have to share with a roommate, compared to a larger room to yourself in an apartment that can influence your decision.  Or if you are able to get a really nice on campus townhouse style suite then it might not be that bad of a deal to stay on campus.  Also, you should consider factors associated with meal plans, like if you feel you do not eat in the dining hall enough for a meal plan to be worth it, then maybe grocery shopping for yourself in an apartment would be a cheaper option.  But on the other side, if you typically eat your parent’s out of house and home, then maybe an all-you-can-eat dining hall would end up being cheaper in the long run.

Once you have weighed the costs of both options and how they compare with each other, there are other things to consider with both options.  Convenience is another big thing to look at.  For example, an article discussing Boston University’s off campus housing discusses how off campus housing is often way more convenient for students.  (Read the full article here). The article talked about how for some students it is easier to live off campus because of scheduling, study abroad, and other reasons.  For some, because of classes or other activities, it is more practical to live on campus. Like if you have all of your classes spread out throughout the day, and would have to drive back and forth to campus a couple of times a day it might not be worth it to live off.  For others, it is more convenient to live off campus, like if you would otherwise always miss dining hall hours because of a late activity that runs through dinner then maybe it is easier to live off campus and cook for yourself when you need to.

Either way you decide to go, as long as you make sure you plan ahead and do your research, you’re going to have a great school year with your friends and hopefully JumpOffCampus made the process a little bit easier for you all.

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Housing Advice, Renting

How to protect yourself when you rent

Renting an off-campus property can be an overwhelming task, to say the least.  We try to help, but how do you know you’re making the right choice when you rent?

In a recent article by Jessica Hickok (http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2012/05/15/how-to-protect-yourself-as-renter/), she identified some very specific things renters can do to protect themselves when renting a property.  Here is the breakdown of that list:

  • Checking the state’s landlord/tenant laws
  • Watching for red flags on a lease, including changes to monthly charges within the time of the agreement, can you make repairs yourself if the landlord does not respond to repair requests, will you get reimbursed for making those repairs, how will your security deposit be settled once you leave, and are there any eviction procedures that could take place
  • Make sure the owner isn’t in the foreclosure process with the property
  • Be sure to have an exit plan just in case

A lot of the time students may often forget they too have rights as renters.  This is why it is so important to point out some things you can do to protect yourself when signing an agreement because you just never know.

To find your state’s Tenant Rights Handbook, go to http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/topics/rental_assistance/tenantrights.

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Student Life

Why do students move off-campus?

At JumpOffCampus we know that every campus is different went it comes to housing. Some schools have housing for their students, some do not, and there are others in between.  But why do students want to move off-campus when their school offers housing on-campus?

In an article by RedandBlack.com (http://redandblack.com/2012/04/24/rising-sophomores-choose-between-on-and-off-campus-housing/), we got an idea on how to answer this question.  According to the article, 67% of freshmen students at the University of Georgia live on campus, while only 18% of sophomores and even fewer juniors and seniors actually live in the dorms.  However, one of the University’s biggest issues with keeping students on campus is space.  According to Carla Dennis, the Assistant to the Executive Director of University Housing, “The majority of our residence halls on-campus are filled with first year students because we have a commitment to first year students as part of the first year live on requirement . . . Unfortunately we don’t have the space to house all of the students who want to live on-campus after their first year.”

While space may be a consideration for some students, it is not the only thing drawing students to off-campus housing.  Other students interviewed at the University of Georgia suggested that the promise of independence, greater privacy, and more affordable living were especially appealing to students looking at off-campus housing options.  In another article in the Princeton Review (http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2012/05/16/30980/), they added that students also are enticed by greater accommodations, more recreational opportunities, and more “bang for your buck” when they make the decision to move off-campus.  While there are some disadvantages to living off-campus, such as inconvenience in the commute to campus and parking, it appears that students seem to identify more of a benefit to this style of living.  So while it may be tough finding a parking spot or taking public transportation to campus every day, for many it seems to be well worth it.

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Apartment Hunting, Housing Advice, Renting

When should I start looking for an apartment?!

With the summer finally here, at JumpOffCampus we have been trying to get a feel for the housing search process and see when students really begin their search.  While the sublet market for summer housing is a rather quick process where you can find an apartment one day and basically move in the next, the search for year round housing is usually a more involved process.

We saw an article (http://www.miamistudent.net/news/students-rush-to-find-off-campus-housing-1.2855045#.T6lQpehSSxg) about students at Miami University and how their housing search is getting a bit crazy.  Students at Miami have had a difficult time finding enough off campus housing for the population.  Because of the shortage of on campus housing, they feel rushed to sign leases up to 18 months in advance in order to beat the crowd!  Students at Miami University are required to live on campus their first two years, and they often sign leases for apartments as freshman.  One group of students when they were signing their lease even had students knocking on their door yelling that they would pay double.  There also were students calling and claiming the 2014-2015 school year already for their house!

So what does this situation at Miami University say about the off campus housing process?  The search for off campus housing is definitely not always enjoyable.  It is stressful, time consuming, and often times you feel like you are just spinning your tires without getting anywhere.  In the case of Miami University, the students there have felt so much pressure to get housing early, that they rush to sign leases school years in advance and once they sign they often regret it, because they have no idea what they are going to be doing two years from now or who their friends will be and whether they just made a good decision or not.

What can we learn from this case about how to go about the upcoming fall semester housing search?  Well, the first thing is to definitely start early (although Miami students may be forced to start a little too early).  It is important to plan ahead of time and try to secure something, but there is no reason to feel pressure to sign something without fully thinking about it.  You should try and stay ahead of the game, but keep in mind, there is never just one ideal option out there.  If you know where to look, you will find that perfect apartment.  You don’t need to take the first one that comes your way just to get the process over with.

It also is important to know where to look.  That’s where we come in!  We have now made it easy to sign up for JumpOffCampus without having an affiliated school.  That means that even if your school does not use our service or endorse it on the school website, you can still sign up and see what apartments might be around your area!  Also, if you are looking for a sublet, anyone from any school can see them too!

Lastly, it is important to work with the landlords and make sure the lease is exactly how you want it.   Make sure it is very detailed and that it covers everything you need in order to protect yourself (we will talk more about this in an upcoming post) and that any verbal changes that are made to the lease are written down and amended.  If the lease doesn’t address things you feel it should, then speak up!

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JumpOffCampus, Student Life

Stop the Spam!!! You heard us.

As with other established apartment listing sites & services, we’ve finally graduated to a new level of popularity… as a target for scammers. Sometimes it’s a realtor misrepresenting themselves or one of their properties. Other times, it’s someone posing as a student asking about the apartment, or even less legit, about you.

Yes, it’s unfortunate, but we’ve taken several measures to educate our users and also implemented functionality to more quickly identify potential spammers and block them from causing any more havoc.

SO…. how do we do it? We created functionality where messages received on the site can be marked as spam.  Once a message is marked as spam, it is put into a queue where we look at the messages and block users, if necessary. Often times, blocking is unnecessary as the message is actually from a student and an overzealous, click-happy landlord decided to lay down the law, but better to be safe then sorry!!!

Here are a couple more “pro” tips on how to avoid scams, and also what to do if you do encounter one:

  1. Make sure any messages you reply to are legitimate.  Use common sense. Detailed descriptions of who they are often help but could be signals that they’re hiding something. If they look like they are covering up something, then they most likely are.
  2. If a listing looks too good to be true, then it probably is.  If there is a brand new super nice apartment in an awesome area for significantly less rent then usual in the area, it could be someone trying to grab your attention with a fake apartment listing so that they have your contact information for other listings. We call this a “bait and switch.”
  3. Don’t EVER send anyone money without proper due diligence.  If someone says they have a money order and want you to cash it and send a portion of the money back, it’s NOT legit. Scammers often send fake money orders, have you cash them and send them a portion of the money back before you realize you never actually got any money in the first place because the money order was fake.
  4. Do not give out any information.  There is no reason any landlords or sub-lessors should be asking for identifying information such as a social security number or bank account information. If you are being asked for this information, it is likely not legit.
  5. Mark any suspicious activity as spam using our new feature.  You can even do this directly from the email alerts you are sent.
  6. Contact us if you feel there is something we should know about. We welcome your feedback and want to make the site the best resource for students out there.  The only way we know how to make improvements is from feedback from our users.  We’re always looking for ways to make improvements so send us any questions, feedback or concerns to help@jumpoffcampus.com. We’re looking forward to them!

Alas! The goal of this post isn’t to scare you, rather we want to educate our users on the issue and how to best handle the situation. Believe us, there are PLENTY of awesome apartments and really good deals on our site, but it’s good practice to be careful!

Check out a previous blog entry of ours for more spam info & stories.

As always, let us know if you have any feedback. And to all that have graduated this past week or so, best of luck to all of you! (P.S. don’t forget to like our Facebook page, and also check out our contest ending at the end of May!  You don’t want to miss out on chances at free TVs for next semester’s apartment)!

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JumpOffCampus, Uncategorized

Sublets are blowin’ up!

We have some big news in the sublets department, and just in time for summer!  We know how stressful it can be to find summer housing, it’s always super competitive, and places that are willing to rent to students for just a couple of months are hard to come by.  Hopefully JumpOffCampus can help you with this and make your summer housing search faster, easier, and less stressful.  We have seen a lot of growth with our sublets and we have decided to make it even easier for students to find them.

For example, Brown University in Providence, RI has seen a huge amount of student response to sublets.  Over 160 sublet listings have been posted, and over 1000 messages have been sent through the site inquiring about them!  With this kind of growth, we wanted to make sure that any student could take advantage of our site, regardless of whether or not their school is affiliated with us.

We have now opened JumpOffCampus to allow any student to sign up to see sublets that are posted at any school.  This way you can look at any housing in an area you need.  What if you get a summer internship in Boston, but you are from Connecticut?  It can be really stressful to find housing in those types of situations, so we decided to make it better!  Now that you can see all sublets, you can simply find the perfect apartment in the area you are looking for!

Also, if you have an apartment that you are looking to sublet, we make it super easy to post and find the perfect students to fill your place!  What’s nice about JumpOffCampus is that the site is student centered, so if you have a place, you can easily find other students to fill it!  It’s easy, avoids wasting your time with the wrong types of people, and keeps your focus on things that are really important, oh yeah like finals!

If you have any comments, questions, suggestions, or feedback, let us know!  We are always looking to improve!  Good luck everyone on the end of the semester and let’s get those sublets rented!!

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JumpOffCampus, Uncategorized

We Are Making Changes!

So a lot of new things have been happening here at JumpOffCampus to update everyone about!  First off, we received some awesome news last week that we won the Rhode Island Business Plan Competition!  We are really grateful to have been a part of the competition and were impressed by all the awesome business ideas, but we are excited about moving forward with all the new resources now available to us!  Check out this link to read more: http://www.golocalprov.com/business/new-winners-named-in-2012-ri-business-plan-competition/.

We also have been spending some time reworking our current marketing campaign.  We have a bunch of new plans to help spread the word about JumpOffCampus, and so make sure you stay tuned starting next week.  We have new contests, prizes and other campaigns to keep your eye out for so make sure you check up with us on Monday for the first contest!  Let us know what you think about the upcoming campaigns, we want your opinions!  Hope everyone enjoys their weekend and if you have finals this week, good luck and study hard!  (P.S. if you know people in need of summer sublets, be sure to point them in our direction!)

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Housing Advice, Renting

Providence renters beware!

A warning was release by the Rhode Island state attorney general to watch out for a new scam on craigslist. Most of the scams we hear about here at JumpOffCampus are one of two scams. Realtors often promote fake listings in order to generate more leads for their current stock, wasting students’ time. The other common scam is the standard craigslist one: a scammer pretends to be renting a property or sublet, and “accidentally” sends too much money for the first month’s rent in the form of a fake money order.

This new scam, however, involves pretending to be a property owner looking for tenants. When renters inquire, they are asked for additional information, including social security numbers, full names, and addresses. The scammer then uses this information to steal their identity, making purchases and signing up for credit cards.

So watch out, students! (Or just stay on JumpOffCampus, of course) The original boston.com article is here:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/rhode_island/articles/2012/04/27/ri_renters_warned_against_craigslist_housing_scam/

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JumpOffCampus, Student Life

And the award for Best Sublet posting goes to…

I wanted to highlight a hilarious sublet posted by one of the Brown students on our site. The pictures are obviously flyers he made, and I can only hope that Providence and Brown campus are covered in them:

http://jumpoffcampus.com/map#show=3096

For this noble pursuit, he certainly deserves some more interest. Somebody sublet this place!

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Dear JumpOffCampus...

Search by Length of Lease

We got a great suggestion yesterday from a student at Brown. Here’s the request:

“It would really help to be able to search by summer sublet vs 1 year lease. As it is now, I have to click on every place to check if it’s just for the summer or if it’s for 1 year. Less important would be the ability to have check boxes for various things: backyard, dishwasher, free laundry, off-steet parking.”

Sounds good to us! This is something we probably should have had a while ago: advanced search. So we put in a bit of time yesterday and here we are, advanced search to the rescue! Now you can filter down your search by the length of the lease, fees, pictures, pets, laundry, and utilities!

Check it out on the map.

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