Student panelists offer their insights on helicopter parents, the need for (Internet) speed and what they really look for in their apartments.
For many attendees, the highlight of the NAA 2011 Student Housing Conference & Exposition in Las Vegas was a special session, sponsored by Grand Campus Living, featuring six students from off-campus rental housing who shared their candid thoughts on off-campus living. Following are highlights from the general session, moderated by Jessica Nix, National Director of Marketing for Place Properties.
Q. When do you start looking for housing for the following year?
DORAN: I look around winter break, but now that I’m applying to grad schools, I’m going to wait until June or July.
POWELL: I look in December, and sign the lease in January or February.
GEORGE: I waited until July to sign my last lease and moved in August. I saw these communities around campus trying to get people to lease, so I knew they still needed people and would give me a good deal.
Q. If there were no minimal fees to reserve your bed in the fall, what would it take for you to sign a lease in October or November?
HOLMES: I would need great incentives that would blow my mind. I’m talking iPads…with Wi-Fi and 3G.
VAKILI: They would have to offer something that I haven’t seen anywhere else. Something I couldn’t walk two miles down the road and find. It has to be cutting edge.
POWELL: For me, if I fall in love with a place, it just comes down to cost. In Blacksburg, Va., concessions are sometimes offered, but our market is not as active with the bells and whistles and doesn’t offer a lot of amenities. Honestly, I don’t think the students in that market are aware that bigger, better and more luxurious even exists, so they don’t demand it.
Q. Do online courses play a role in your housing decision? Would you ever choose to take all online courses?
POWELL: If I have an online course, I have to have reliable technology. But I would still take traditional courses, too, because I don’t want to take away from the college experience. Online courses offer great resources, but it’s not the same experience. And even with the classes that are online, at my school you have to come in to take the final exams. You have to be on campus at some point.
Q. What are your expectations when it comes to Internet service?
HOLMES: Really big. Bandwidth has to be really high so that I can complete projects and tests for all my classes and make sure those projects get through to my professors on time. There are times when the Internet is so slow that I haven’t been able to transmit a file on time, and I’ve missed a few assignments because of that. I had to beg the professor to let me do it again.
GEORGE: There is nothing more frustrating than trying to meet a deadline for a paper and the Internet crashes. There’s no one to call because it’s 3 a.m. and you’re in college and you work all night, so you have to wait and get a grade reduction. So Internet is a deal-breaker for me.
VAKILI: The Internet consistently works for me, but the problem is that it isn’t able to provide fast enough service for me to actually be able to do the things I need to do. For one course, I have to watch an entire TV series online, and if I tried to do it from my apartment, it would take about six hours to get through a one-hour episode. I’m constantly trekking back to campus where I know the service is fast enough.
DORAN: I’ve never had major problems with the Internet, but when it’s really late at night, that’s when it seems to be slowest. It’s especially slow during finals, when everyone is doing everything at the last minute.
Q. How do you know the Internet will be up to snuff when you’re looking for an apartment?
HOLMES: Word of mouth. I go on Facebook. And now that I’m older, I know what questions to ask.
DORAN: I look on apartment ratings sites. But I take the comments with a grain of salt.
POWELL: There are limited providers in Blacksburg, so it’s easy for me to reach out and talk to them directly. All math courses are online, so it’s very, very important that I have good service.
Q. How important is Wi-Fi? What are your expectations if a community offers strictly Wi-Fi service?
HOLMES: If I can sit by the pool and do my homework, that’s awesome. But it’s nice to have both Wi-Fi and wired, because it’s going to eat up the bandwidth if a lot of people are on Wi-Fi.
VAKILI: In my mind, we all buy laptops so that we can be mobile, but then we’re stuck in one place where we have to use Internet. By providing Wi-Fi, communities are providing students with the opportunity to use laptops for their intended purpose. Personally, I think so much better when I’m outside.
FIELDS: It’s not a must, but it’s nice. If a community only offers Wi-Fi, it has to be fast. HOLMES: It’s going to be a snail’s pace if 100 people are trying to get on Wi-Fi at once, which is why my expectations are lower for Wi-Fi versus wired.
DORAN: My expectations are higher because if a property is offering Wi-Fi and advertising it, they should have anticipated any problems that may arise and solved them beforehand.
Q. Would you pay more to upgrade your Internet service?
FIELDS: It should be fast to begin with.
HOLMES: If I’m paying more, the service has to be noticeably faster. It has to be instant.
POWELL: I would pay more. I think it’s that important because all of our professors are using online portals.
Q. Would you prefer that Internet service was bundled with your rent or separate?
FIELDS: At Ball State you’re required to get your own service. I like it better.
DORAN: I’d like to have the option to do either. The apartment should offer a provider and if you find something for a better price, you can go with that.
GEORGE: I think it should all be included.
VAKILI: As a freshman, it’s your first time away from home and you’re not accustomed to paying any bills, let alone five separate ones that come to you. I think having everything included in one bill is a lot easier.
Q. How do you feel about the role of online portals?
DORAN: I like the personal interaction when I’m paying rent or submitting a service request.
FIELDS: I would never lease or renew online but I would pay rent.
GEORGE: I would never lease for the first time online but I would definitely renew or do a maintenance request because you don’t always have time to run to the office. Holmes: A simple app with resident events would be nice.
POWELL: I know the online lease is popular for out-of-state students because the parents can go online and access it.
Q. How involved are your parents when it comes to housing?
POWELL: Very involved. I like to keep my parents informed. At the end of the day, they’re helping me pay for college so I check with them before signing a lease. They trust my judgment, but they’ll look over the lease.
GEORGE: We talk 10 times a day. I know that sounds extreme but it’s the truth. My mom was the one who found my current apartment. She texted me and said I looked into these three places, I need you to go here, here and here. Here are the addresses and phone numbers, but I would really like you to live here. She knows I’m going to go with her opinion because she’s my mom and I trust her. When I was leasing, she was on speaker phone.
DORAN: I get a lot of freedom, but they trust I’m not going to take them to the cleaners.
FIELDS: I had a joint lease, and my parents wanted to make sure my other roommates’ parents signed as guarantors as well.
HOLMES: My parents want to check out the place before I sign anything because they know it’s a really expensive investment and they want to make sure that what they’re signing is something that they really want for me and that I want.
Q. What questions do your parents usually ask that you don’t think to before you sign a lease?
HOLMES: As soon as they walk in the door, they ask how safe it is.
VAKILI: They just dig a little deeper with the nitty gritty.
GEORGE: My mom always wants to ask things that I tell her not to. Once I’m off the phone, she calls them right back to ask.
Q. How do you share information about housing with your parents?
HOLMES: I send links to the company website, or to an interactive tour on Facebook. First I have to show dad how to use Facebook, though.
Q. From a student renter’s perspective, what does a manager do?
GEORGE: They do reports.
FIELDS: They make sure you’re getting what you paid for.
VAKILI: Managers oversee operations. They better guarantee the experience they advertised to me or I’ll hold them accountable.
POWELL: Most students perceive management as a maintenance team. It’s been my experience that most students just want their maintenance requests completed and that’s their main focus.
Q. What does customer service mean to you, and what are your customer service expectations?
HOLMES: I don’t want to see someone sad or tired or hungover when I walk in the office.
VAKILI: The most frustrating thing is to walk into any establishment and feel invisible. And it doesn’t take long for that to happen—two or three seconds of someone ignoring you. I want to be acknowledged every single time I walk in the office, not just the first time I walk in, because you want to make a great impression on me. If I come in three times a week, every time I walk in you say hey—and hopefully by the 15th time, it’s, “Hey Monet,” not, “Hey you.” I want to be a name and a face and not just a resident in apartment 2013.
Q. It’s one of those bad days for staff and something isn’t up to your expectations. What do you do?
FIELDS: Tell everyone online if things are bad.
GEORGE: If I go to the office staff and they say, “Oh yeah, we know it’s going on, it’s a property-wide issue,” I’m gonna tweet about it.
DORAN: If the office blows it off or ignores me, I would contact the corporate office. Holmes: I understand that things happen—I just need information.
VAKILI: It’s not so much the problem itself, it’s how they respond to that and what their plan of action is.
Q. What features are a must in an apartment? What about amenities?
GEORGE: A dishwasher, washer and dryer and closet space.
POWELL: Space in the bedroom is a big deal for me because it may be the only place where you can get away from the chaos in the apartment.
HOLMES: A study room and 24-hour computer or business center is important.
VAKILI: I look for a nice pool and outdoor amenities, because that’s where I’m going to meet people. It’s not like the dorms, where you walk into the hallway and there are people right across from you.
FIELDS: I had a lot of amenities and I never used any of them. So for me, it’s location. Can I walk to campus?
Q. What role should management play in roommate conflicts?
DORAN: Just make yourselves available.
GEORGE: Be empathetic. You don’t have to fix the problem but just listen.
VAKILI: I think a lot of roommate issues are due to different styles of communication. Act as an interpreter. Maybe the roommates just aren’t hearing each other. A third party could provide some clarification.
Q. Do you participate in resident events? Does it affect your decision to renew your lease?
DORAN: We have Waffle Wednesdays, and I go to most of those—especially when there’s free food.
FIELDS: I didn’t renew because of the events, but I like them so maybe it was subconsciously part of my decision.
HOLMES: If there are a lot of really fun events going on all the time, and I know I’m having fun at that community, it would play a big role in renewal.
POWELL: I try to go to most events, but the turnout has a lot to do with planning around the right times. In the middle of the semester, there won’t be a lot of people there, but if you plan it around finals week and offer free food, it’s a nice break and more people will show up. It may have played a part in my renewal, but it’s not what came to mind when I thought of renewing.
Q. Do you prefer to have a furnished or unfurnished apartment?
DORAN: Furnished. It’s hard to bring all of that stuff home in a U-haul truck.
GEORGE: Give me what you’ve got and I’ll work with it. I don’t like dealing with the hassle of finding furniture.
Q. How do you feel about a leasing agent showing your apartment to prospects during the semester?
DORAN: I would allow them to show people my apartment for a gift card.
VAKILI: It’s an issue of privacy. I would prefer not to have people in there.
Q. How can communities get students to post positive feedback on their websites?
DORAN: Grab a resident who goes to a lot of events and establish a relationship with them.
VAKILI: Give them an incentive if they are taking time out of their day. Even a Starbucks gift card—just something so they feel like they are getting a reward for their efforts.
Q. When it’s time to renew, would you prefer an incentive that you yourself could enjoy, or a rent concession that your parents could benefit from?
POWELL: I would prefer a rent concession. I am always looking out for the best deal and trying to help my parents because I’m fortunate enough to have them help me out.
GEORGE: I would want the gift card. My parents pay for everything and I still want the gift card.
Lauren Boston is NAA’s Staff Writer. She can be reached at lauren@naahq.org or 703/797-0678.