In order to save potentially hundreds of dollars, students who go abroad or graduate at the end of fall semester can find others to sublet their apartments through numerous mediums.

Many post advertisements on fliers, Facebook or other Web sites, such as IlliniApartments.com. Students and recent graduates have said some methods are more efficient than others.

Alice Huddleston, who graduated in December 2006 with a LAS degree, recently subleased her apartment in Urbana for the current semester and is looking for someone to sublet her apartment for the summer.

Huddleston advertised by posting fliers around campus and by creating Facebook groups. Currently, she is the administrator of a Facebook group “Apartment Sublease for Summer 2007.”

Huddleston said the fliers she hung were taken down and using Facebook was an effective alternative.

“(Facebook) was definitely the best way to do it,” Huddleston said. “That way everyone can see it and contact you. Huddleston said she was able to sublease her apartment relatively quickly for the spring semester. Several interested people contacted her through Facebook.

Huddleston ultimately subleased her apartment to a friend of a friend. Currently, she has heard from a couple of people who may want to sublet her apartment in the summer.

Once a prospective lessee has been acquired, Hudddleston said students can go to their landlords with the interested party, who will sign a lease and pay rent there. Huddleston said the students can negotiate over utilities and rent.

Joshua Sulkin, first-year graduate student in Engineering, is president of a Registered Student Organization called the Technology & Management Club, which runs IlliniApartments.com.

Sulkin said the success of the club’s IlliniBookExchange.com led them to create IlliniApartments.com in 2004, which currently has over 4,000 active users.

Sulkin said students can use IlliniApartments.com to post and search for sublease listings, and that the club is working to expand another feature that will allow students to search for leases through property managers.

Search parameters include rent, gender and other factors. These allow students to find apartments that suit their interests, he said. When students find an apartment they like, they can request to set up a meeting with the student who posted the listing.

In the future, the club would like to add an improved mapping feature to the Web site, he said.

“I think (subleasing) is really hard,” Sulkin said. “It takes a lot of footwork for students. We’d like to make it as easy as possible.”

The International Student and Scholar Services office helps international students find apartments to sublet via a sublease catalogue featuring advertisements for international student subleases, said Dorothy Maitre, assistant director at the office.

Maitre said the office will accept advertisements from University students interested in subleasing to an international student.

“I think international students would love to live with American students because they can get exposed to the culture,” Maitre said.