Perspective tenants air issues and concerns about finding somewhere to live
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Eric Walker
Equinox Staff
Late in the fall semester most sophomore and junior students are faced with the daunting task of securing a place to live in the upcoming academic year, a mission which is foreign to many.
Wednesday, Nov. 7 the Office of Student and Community Relations sponsored a Fall Off-Campus Housing Fair in the Young Student Center. The fair lasted from 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. and featured landlords from nearly 20 agencies offering housing in the Keene area.
With the Internet students can find pages and pages of apartments and houses open for rent, but the fair offered students a chance to talk one-on-one with a variety of landlords without scheduling a number appointments, discuss what they were specifically looking for and raise any questions or concerns they may have.
Representatives from the Arcadia Apartments supplied a ring-toss game where students could win free t-shirts. After much confusion regarding the apartments’ affiliation with the college (there is none), they recently changed the name to Arcadia Apartments from its original title of Arcadia Hall.
Arcadia Apartments representative Heather Trombly said the apartments could serve as an easy transition from dorm life to off-campus living for students who have never been out on their own.
The apartments are located right across the street from the campus on Winchester Court, and come fully furnished with a couch, coffee table, kitchen table, flat screen TV, bed, dresser, desk, fridge and stove. When renting from Arcadia all utilities including cable and internet are built into the rent. Students are supplied free parking spaces, one on-site and extras in Winchester Lot. Arcadia Apartments go for $799 per person per month on a 12-month lease. This is more expensive than nearly anywhere else off campus, but Trombly said with all of the utilities factored in it can be less expensive than other far less luxurious options.
Like many of the residential buildings on campus, the Arcadia Apartments installed surveillance cameras, which Trombly said are there to provide security, not to spy on and reprimand students. The fair offered a broad range of renters, from couples who own less than a half dozen properties, to businesses such as Greenwald Reality that manages close to 200 apartments.
A number of renters, including BKA Properties and B&W Properties, offer finders fees to their tenants. If the outgoing student recommends their current residence to a friend, and that friend signs a lease, the outgoing tenant then receives $100. B&W also offers a Dean’s List Discount, where students can shave $100 per semester off their rent for retaining a 3.5 GPA.
Katey Adams from BKA Properties said most students used to sign leases in February; they would often start looking before winter break and then make the commitment when they returned.
However in recent years students have been signing earlier and earlier with many making their decisions in October. Adams said all of BKA’s properties are already full for next year.
A B&W Properties representative said they used to start showing around March but now kids start calling in September, and in recent years they have filled all their spots before Thanksgiving.
Sophomore Chelsea Day, who plans to live off campus with two other girls next year, said she already signed her lease. “People were telling me that I should probably get on it early, and I really wanted to get a house near by,” she said.
Housing inspectors representing the City of Keene set up a table at the fair and offered informational packets with tips for dealing with landlords, as well as a full list of houses and apartments that passed the City’s Voluntary Minimum Housing and Safety Standards Inspection.
Inspector Fred Parsells said he works very closely with KSC’s Coordinator of Student and Community Relations Allison Riley and the Office of Residential Life and Housing.
Residential Life offers listings of available off-campus housing on the KSC website, which Parsells said consists of only apartments and houses that have passed the City’s Voluntary Minimum Housing and Safety Standards Inspection.
The inspection consists what Parsells called “21 common sense items,” such as adequate heating systems, working pipes, and safe electricity.
Sophomore Natalie Kocurek said, “I got a lot of information and I kind of got a sense of what everyones offering and what the common prices are.”
For upperclassmen who would rather stay on the campus there will be 300 to 350 spots available for students with 51 or more credits in the upcoming academic year.
Juniors and seniors who wish to do so can enter a lottery, which is similar but separate from the lottery the rest of the campus uses.
The college will hold a workshop on Nov. 14 in Science Center room 161 from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. where students will have the chance to undergo tenant education and earn a “preferred renter” card, which makes them eligible for landlord-specific deals, such as $50 off a security deposit, free cable installation, Shaw’s gift cards and other incentives depending on the landlord. To register for the workshop students can contact Allison Riley at ariley3@keene.edu.
Eric Walker can be contacted at ewalker@keene-equinox.com.