When Did You Find Housing?

[Carly Rae Jepsen]

Hey y'all,

University housing apparently has no spaces available; students have until mid-May to notify them but it seems to me that many decide to renew their leases. I'm getting desperate, even though I won't be moving til August.

I could lease with someone else, but the deposit fees are wild and I can't afford them at the moment.

What should I do, just wait for university housing spots to open up or try to find a place elsewhere and borrow money for the deposit?

And, just to help me with my timeline, when did y'all find housing when moving to a new city for grad school for the first time?

Am I early, maybe? Reserving a place would give me so much peace of mind!

[ZeChocMoose]

In the two college towns that I have lived in, end of April was starting to move into the late end of reserving a spot for the fall. These were places, though, where there was a limited stock of rentals and some rentals would ask you in late Fall/early Spring term if you were coming back for the next year. Way too early in my opinion - but apparently it is not uncommon in college towns to ask tenants if they are going to release the place - only months into their current lease.  I have also lived in cities were 60 days before you were going to move was ample time to find a place. 

I would think that St. Louis would operate more like a city than a college town in terms of when you needed to start looking, but current graduates students there would be your best resource.  If they tell you that you need to secure something sooner rather than later, then I would borrow money for the deposit and find a place off-campus.  You could also cover all your bases and ask to be placed on the waitlist for on-campus housing in case you are having difficulty finding something off-campus.

[rising_star]

It really is going to be dependent on where you're moving to. I actually lived in a big college town for my MA and was able to pretty easily find housing for the fall during the summer. I would definitely talk to current students to find out what the housing market looks like. My experience renting in larger cities has been that people only have to give 30-60 days notice that they won't renew so looking now will mean you end up finding places which want someone to move in by June 1.

If you're moving into a place where you'll have a roommate (or two) will also really lower the upfront deposits. In my experience, the security deposit is equal to one month's rent. So, if you're splitting the rent in half, then you also are only responsible or half of the security deposit.

[fuzzylogician]

Yeah, this really depends. I've lived in university towns with a set move-in date some time in the summer (July 1, August 1, and September 1, at different places). This means that with 2-3 months' notice, the good places would go on the marker some time between April and June. Right now I live in a city where the university is not the main business in town, and there are leases year round. There is no particular set date when the best apartments go on the market, and apartments will go on the market with a move-in date within a few weeks in the future, so you won't really find much of anything for next fall at this point. In addition, if you look for a place with roommates or for a sublease, those will usually come up later in the year than whole apartments. This would be something to figure out for your own new city. As for university housing, you could talk to the housing office to see if there are some apartments reserved for first-years (in mine, that was definitely the case) or what the chances are that you could get something, and go from there. Often your department will have current students who can provide more information, who may even be willing to go look at a place for you in person if you're trying to rent an apartment from afar. 

[senorbrightside]

I'm now getting worried. I'll be in Spain until July 1st and will be moving to Urbana-Champaign (not far from St. Louis!) in August...and haven't really given a thought to finding a place to live. I'm so used to Spain that I don't even know how to begin looking...basically commenting so I will remember to come back to this post and read advice from others and stuff  

[juilletmercredi]

Yeah, it totally depends.

When I moved to New York for graduate school, I didn't find and secure an apartment until a week before classes started. That was pretty normal. There were lots of students who didn't find housing until several weeks after classes had begun. I was told that looking for an apartment before July was too early, because they go so quickly. Plus, landlords in New York would expect you to start paying rent from the time you secured the apartment; they don't hold apartments for people like that.

When I moved to a small college town (State College) for my postdoc, I started looking for an apartment the February before I moved there (in August) and that was late. Most of the students rented apartments for the following year between November and January of the year prior. The saving grace, though, is because there isn't a lot of overlap between what the undergrads wanted and what the postdocs and professors wanted, and I was able to find an apartment that was mostly populated by grad students, postdocs, and professionals. (It was a little more expensive and a little farther from campus, but "farther" meant it was 4 minutes driving rather than walking distance.)

One thing you can try is subletting for a while. Lots of students find out over the summer that a roommate is leaving or they have secured an apartment but need to find a roommate. Also, sometimes apartments free up when students graduate in December. Sometimes professors on sabbatical or graduate students on fieldwork sublet their apartments for a semester or a year. They often list these on Craigslist. Sometimes the university has an internal source.

I wouldn't wait on university housing unless you know for certain that spots usually open up over the summer and that students tend to get in. I'd pursue other avenues and try to find somewhere to borrow money for deposits, if you need to.

Edited April 22, 2018 by juilletmercredi

[Carly Rae Jepsen]

Thanks everybody for your advice!

St. Louis seems to be like New York City--all housing listings require an immediate move-in. I will stop wasting my time for now I guess, and start looking in mid-June again. It sucks that it's like this but oh well.