Meagan Simantz, senior in LAS, has felt a surge of popularity in the recent weeks. She and her roommates at Johnstowne Apartments have been answering the door to prospective tenants for their apartment next year. She said people have been posting fliers around the building and knocking on doors.

These persistent students have been requesting a “passdown,” a practice in which the current residents designate who they want to take their lease for the following year. Simantz said nobody she knew wanted to pay the four-bedroom apartment’s $20 increase in rent per person per month for next year. Instead of passing down her apartment to friends, she and her roommates considered between eight and 10 offers promising anywhere from $200 to a full month’s rent per person for the rights to the apartment.

“We met the people and liked them, and they made a decent offer,” she said, explaining that the units are in high demand and she has to inform her landlord of her decision by today. “It’s the perfect location.”

JSM Management, Inc., lessor of Johnstowne Apartments, 508 E. John St., Champaign, declined to comment.

“The current tenants who are passing it down to you have only lived there three weeks,” Esther Patt, coordinator of the Tenant Union, said. “They don’t necessarily know yet what’s wrong with the landlord, the lease or the building, and we might know.”

Kelly Bolstad is the residential and project director of Campus Property Management, 303 E. Green St. She said it owns 1,600 units on campus and offers incentives for tenants who choose to renew their apartment or refer a friend to live there next year – the same concept as a passdown.

“Pretty much, they’re selling the apartment for us,” she said, explaining that tenants who refer a friend to live in their unit next year, which is most common in three-and four-bedroom apartments, earn a $100 credit to the unit’s account.

Current Campus Property Management tenants must inform the landlord of their decision to resign before the market opens to the public on Oct. 1, Bolstad said. Residents who renew their apartment will receive a percentage discount, up to $40 per month, toward rent. She said the number of renewals varies from year to year and the practice is most popular among graduate students.

Ashley McGinn, sophomore in ACES, received a passdown from her older sister at Green Street Towers, 616 E. Green St., and she will live there next year.

McGinn and her roommates didn’t pay the current tenants any extra money. She said she is glad she knows what to expect and what to bring when she moves in next fall.

“The main thing was that it eliminated a lot of the stress of looking for an apartment,” she said. “It was nice not to worry about what I was doing for next year when this year had barely even started.”

Patt reminds students that all potential tenants need to do their homework.

“I’m not saying don’t take a passdown,” she said. “But don’t skip a process of having the lease reviewed and checking the landlord complaint records.”