As students begin signing leases for the 2018-2019 school year, a competition initiates among the countless apartment rental companies around campus.

Basia Orlowska, an employee at the 309 Green Apartments, said a beneficial accommodation that Campustown Rentals has is that it offering individual leasing.

“I would say the individual leasing is very important for college students, especially if they all trust their roommates or stuff like that. So if your roommate does not pay on time, you are not responsible for that at any time,” Orlowska said.

An individual lease allows  each resident to have their own lease agreement and be held responsible for only his or her rental installments and applicable utility and parking charges. Charges made for roommates will not interfere with one another, as everyone is only responsible for fees.

Orlowska said that all utilities are comprised in the apartment, including cable and internet. Having utilities included in the lease allows for a much more efficient way of organizing your bills because they are all put under one charge.

Ashley Matheny from  Bankier Apartments also said individual leasing is a benefit toward renting an apartment.

“There are special utilities packages for three and four bedrooms,” Matheny said. However, all utilities are not included for both  Bankier Apartments and The University Group.

Anthony Frazier, an employee at First Column Living, said utility inclusion is different for each apartment.

“At 512 (E. Green St.), all utilities are included. At the other ones, all utilities are included except for electricity. Cable is included at 907 (S. Third St.) as well and internet is included for all of them and we have a new fiber optic Internet network in all of them,” Frazier said.

Andy Hutson, an employee from The University Group, said The University Group apartments, do not include all utilities.

“No utilities are included in our base rents; there’s an extra fee for sanitation, which is garbage removal and sewer tacks and recycling. Older buildings that have one water meter for the entire building would charge back a flat cost to the resident each month per person,” Hutson said.

Another positive aspect of The University Group’s budgeting for the residents is its ability to price heating accordingly to make the payments  much less costly by expanding it over a larger amount of time, giving students greater leniency in paying the fee.

“In older buildings where there is boiler heat, residents are charged a heat cost, which we have budget billing. We divide it up over 12 months, so they are not paying it all in larger portions during the winter months; we spread it out to help keep that budget in mind,” Hutson said.

There are many different aspects to apartments that may make them more beneficial for a college student, such as the amenities or the cheap prices.

Orlowska of 309 Green Apartments said she enjoys the pool on the eighth floor, the 24-hour gym, the hot tub and study lounges.

The University Group also offers different amenities to their lessees.

“I think that’s been our key to success — being able to keep our prices much lower than most competition,” Hutson said.

Frazier said a really popular aspect of living at First Column Living is the VIP black card.

“We also just added what we call the First Column Black Card, which is a VIP card, and right now it is you get a bunch of different discounts but one of the major ones is that you would get free cover at Joe’s and you get to skip the lines for an entire year,” Frazier said.

As many of the apartments are given up for rent to countless students on campus, the question remains as to what happens to the apartments that do not get rented out.

“We at (309 Apartments) actually lease out completely. We are leasing out a lot faster this year than last year. The thing that we did  (at 309 Green Apartments) last year was where there were two empty rooms in a four but they were loft, so the doors just remained locked,” Orlowska said.

Hutson said The University Group apartments that aren’t rented are used as model apartments and they make sure that everything is completely renovated. However, the apartments eventually seem to get rented because people come into town last minute.

“This is actually the first year that (Bankier Apartments) had anything empty. Right now we are in the process of remodeling and anything we have empty this year is being gutted and remodeled and renovated for next year,” Matheny said.

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