Students @ Schreyer Honors College, Penn State

I’ve been meaning to publish this information for awhile now. Since I am graduating soon, I decided I better post it! Perhaps it will benefit posterity, and save someone else the time it took me to work this out. 

It’s a big mystery how people actually find places to live off campus. Also, whenever you start tossing around the idea of moving off campus, you generally get the response, “It’s a lot cheaper.” But everyone is very vague on the details. So before moving off campus last year, I exercised my mad Excel skills and figured out the finances. 

NOTE!! If you plan to move off campus, start your search EARLY. As in, September. Leases open on October 1, and trust me, a lot of places are totally full by Thanksgiving break.

How does one find an apartment in State College? Personally, my future roommate and I just picked an autumn afternoon to wander around downtown to find potential apartment buildings we liked. Pretty much all places for rent will have a sign posted saying who they are rented through, or you can always search the internet for the apartment building name. If you are overwhelmed by the thought of aimlessly perusing the steets,  you can always start your search by browsing the web. There are a plethora of small real estate companies around State College, but a few of the bigger ones are: The Apartment Store (http://www.apartmentstore.com/state-college/), GN Realty (http://www.gnrealty.com/), and ARPM (http://www.arpm.com/).

Once you have made a list of apartments you are interested in, go visit the office of the real estate agency. Ask to see their list of prices, ask if they have any place else they think you’d be interested in, and arrange to meet with a real estate agent to go visit an apartment in each of the buildings you’ve listed. 

THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN CHOOSING AN APARTMENT

• Location! Do you want to be within walking distance of campus? Make sure you define with your future roommate what “walking distance” is. Ask current apartment resident how long it takes to walk to center campus landmarks (Willard building, the HUB, etc).
• Location! Would you be comfortable living out in one of the complexes down Atherton, where you would have to take a bus in? Keep in mind, those apartments are somewhat less convenient, but offer cleaner/bigger space for less money.  Ask residents if they think this location is annoying or a non-issue.
• Location! Living in the middle of Beaver Ave may seem like a good idea at 3:00 on Tuesday afternoon, but come Thursday, Friday, Saturday night, you may regret your decision. Keep noise levels in mind! Do you and your roommate mind if you are living in a noisy area with lots of night life? Examples: near a bar, frat house, or Canyon Pizza. Talk with residents who live in the apartment to see if downtown noise is a problem or if it’s totally manageable. 
• Price: Discuss finances with your roommate beforehand to see what their pricerange is. Ask real estate agent if your rent includes utilities: heat, electric, water, cable, internet, etc. If it doesn’t, ask current residents about what they pay for those. 
• Parking: Do you/your roommate have a car? Lots of apartments charge BIG bucks for parking; it’s not uncommon to see prices up to $100/month. Ask if the building has parking, how much it would cost, and whether or not it is guarteed for residents. If it doesn’t have parking, find out where the nearest municple parking garage or street permit parking area is, and inquire about price/availability. 
• Furnishings: Are you looking for an unfurnished or furnished apartment? Talk with your rommate and your parents about what you would need to stock the apartment; you might be surprised how much stuff you can put together. If you’re living with the same person for 2+ years, it might be worth it to invest in furniture, since you’ll pay more for rent if you live in a furnished place.
• Own rooms? You’ll be hard pressed to find an affordable place that lets you have your own rooms. See if you’re OK sharing, or if separate rooms is a must.
• Extras: You might also want to consider little extras: is there [indoor] bike parking? Does the apartment have washer/dryer facilities, or do you need to take stuff to a laundry mat? Does it smell strongly of the restaurant you’re living above?

Once you’ve got all that worked out and you have some contenders, here’s how I worked out the price. My example numbers from 2 years ago are included at the end of each bullet in bold.

For the dorms, find out how much you are paying per semester for:

• Go to your bursar account on elion and find out how much you’re paying in room (aka rent). Alternatively, go to PSU Housing + Food Services site (http://www.hfs.psu.edu/rates/fall09spring10.shtml). $1910
• Consult bursar account or HFS website and find out how much you pay for board (aka groceries). As far as food is concerned, you might also want to factor in any additional money you add… for example, I usually added about $150/semester to my regular meal plan #3. $1765+$150 = $1915
• Figure out how much you are paying for on-campus parking, if applicable. $360
• Factor in additional special living option fees, such as $25 for living in Simmons/Atheron. $25
• Talk with your friends/parents to see if there are any other on-campus-only fees you’re paying.
• For one school year, add and multiple by 2. =(Room+Board+Parking+Fees)*2=$8420

And then, for each apartment, list how much you would each be paying for:

• Rent, per month $830 total/2 people = $415
• Discuss with your parents about how much money you should spend on food, per month $225
• Parking, per semester $0
• Utilities, per month   Cable:$40/mo/2 people= $20
• Ideally, you will only be paying rent and utilies for 9.5 months, and you will find a summer sublet. So, WITH SUBLET, =(rent*9.5+food*9.5+parking*2+utilities*9.5) =$6175
• Realistically, there are a LOT more summer sublets available than there are people to rent them out. You should figure out how much it would cost to pay rent for the entire year, and see if the apartment is also finanically feasible WITHOUT SUBLET =(rent*12+food*9.5+parking*2+utilities*9.5)=$7125

Beware: some real estate agencies we looked at offered a 9.5 month lease, for a higher rent/mo. It seemed like that would be easier because we wouldn’t have to sublet.. but then, it turned out the higher rent for 9.5 months was the same price as regular rent for 12 months. So we weren’t saving any money. 

In the end, we’re saving about $1000 this year by moving off campus. But this was the cheapest apartment we looked into– most places didn’t result in very significant savings. If nothing else, doing this math can help ensure you are only paying the SAME you would to live on campus, and not spending more. 

And above all, the money was NOT more valuable than my years spent in the dorms! Now that I’m a senior, living off campus is nice, but I wouldn’t trade my 3 years in Simmons for anything!!