The Danger in Renting to Students
If you are looking to own rental property in a college town, it’s inevitable that you’ll have to deal with student renters. Renting to students comes with many perks. Nonetheless, they can also be a handful, and in this piece, we are going to look at the cons of renting to students:
- Negligence in Maintaining the Property
When dealing with students, you have to be aware that this might be the first time they are away from home and on their own. For this reason, they might not know a thing about maintaining property. This could spell trouble on your part. For example, if the students are not neat, you might experience issues with pests or rodents. They might also not be prompt to report to you maintenance issues such as a leaking roof. Small problems might mushroom into big ones if not dealt with immediately. In the end, it could ruin your property or hike the cost of repairs.
- Poor Money Management Skills
College students might not be the best at managing their money too. Having lived with their parents or guardians for pretty much their whole lives, this might be the first time they are away from home. This means that they have to learn how to live on a budget because money might be tight. This is often a challenge as they often prioritize trivial things like spending a night out as opposed to spending the money on rent. As such, you might have to evict this tenant midyear for failing to pay rent. It might be a tad difficult to find a new tenant as most of the students at this time will have secured rentals for the rest of the year.
- Recurrent Turnover
If your tenant base is mostly students, brace yourself for a yearly turnover. Students will frequently sign leases that cover a short-term depending on the length of their school year. This means that you will find yourself fixing damages to the apartment frequently before new tenants can move in.
- Competition
In some cases, the rentals around the educational institution might be more than the students looking for accommodation. This means that the students might be selective as there is a wide choice of rental units. To draw the students to your rentals, you might have to lower your rent.
- Difficult in Screening
If you are conscious of the kind of tenants that move into your rentals, it might be difficult to screen students. They are young and therefore might not have an apartment or employment history. In this case, you will have to involve their parent or guardian to co-sign their lease. If they fail to pay rent, the parent will have to meet the rent payment.
- Breach of contract
Students might not be too keen on meeting the requirements of their lease agreement. They will get into your hair for disregarding some of the clauses to their lease. For example, you might deal with noise complaints if they host parties at your apartment and play loud music. You might also have to deal with more than the agreed number of people living in the apartments. Hosting frequent visitors will take its toll on your property.
- Vacancies in the summer
It will be hard filling vacancies when the students move back home, especially in the summer. In this case, you could have the students sign a lease that covers the whole year. This will include the period that they will not be living there.
Of course student tenants have their advantages and besides, there isn’t a con to them that you can’t deal with. If you are looking to have your property managed, look no further. At lapmg, we offer property management services and leave you to other pursuits. Check us out here.
