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Just two weeks into the semester, sophomores and juniors who have barely settled into their living situations for this academic year are on the hunt for housing for the 2022-23 school year. Although many students know their college learning experiences will stretch far beyond the classroom, some rental companies are embracing the ability to create teachable moments with their renters.

Ben Tupper, who has been running the rental company Rent From Ben for 24 years, said that recently, students have been signing leases earlier than in the past.

“I have people contacting me in April, signing leases … a year, more than a year, 18 months away,” Tupper said. “Why are they doing it? It’s because they’re doing their homework.”

Rayna Schiering, an SU junior, said she had not done her research sophomore year so she and her friends got a late start looking for a rental. Her group wasn’t quite sure what questions to ask while touring locations, and they mostly gauged their interest in a place by how the previous residents filled the space, she said.

“When you’re a girl looking for a house, the house is nicer when another girl is living in it,” Schiering said. “We can get an idea of what it looks like if we want to live there.”

Through the mistakes they made during their sophomore year housing hunt experience, Schiering and her roommates learned to get an earlier start when looking for a house and to ask more questions about other ancillary aspects, such as how many parking spaces a house has and how many bathrooms are available.

Tupper said students should prepare for the rental process by doing these three things: have a group set and committed to living together, read and ask others about rental companies’ reputations and get input on a lease before signing it.

When a group first reaches out to him, Tupper said he and his staff ask how many students they have in their group so they can show them houses that meet their needs. When groups give Rent From Ben a mixed range of roommates, it can be a waste of time for the tour guides and students, Tupper said.

Students looking for off-campus houses to live in should have a clear idea of how many people they are living with before they start their home search, Rent from Ben’s Ben Tupper said.
Courtesy of Laney Vassallo

“I say, ‘What’s your group size?’ and they say, ‘5, 6, 7,’ and then instantly it’s like, you cannot put the cart before the horse. The horse is how many people are in your group,” Tupper said.

Laney Vassallo, an SU alumna and partner in the rental company Foundation Housing, said Foundation asks students to fill out an application with questions about what they are looking for in a house. Since the company currently offers three houses in the SU area, the information helps the company place groups in the house that best fits the group’s needs.

Foundation is also aware that not all students live in Syracuse during the summer, Vassallo said, so the company offers nine and a half-month leases as well as the typical 12-month leases. The company also communicates with their tenants through Slack — a messaging app whose name is a backronym for Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge.

“What’s awesome about Slack is that we set it up so you have a house channel so anyone in your house can send a message out,” Vassallo said. “It’s a little easier to organize and follow in search messages as opposed to using iMessage.”

Slack is a common tool used in workplaces because coworkers can send anyone in a company a message and create group chats. Vassallo said that having tenants use the app to communicate with each other and the property managers gives the students a taste of communicating in a working environment.

Despite the company only being around for a few years, Vassallo said she believes Foundation already has a strong reputation due to its decor, security measures and the investment they put into the students living in their properties.

“This is kind of preparing you guys to go on to the next step when you go to get your first job out of college,” Vassallo said.

Both Vassallo and Tupper said that the rental process is a huge learning experience for college students because, for many, this is their first time taking care of a home without parents’ guidance.

Schiering said Rent From Ben has been “very accommodating” since she reached out this summer, and she said that Tupper is here for the students.

Part of the way he makes the rental process as accessible as possible to potential tenants is by leaving a downloadable copy of a Rent From Ben lease on the company’s website. He said he wants students to know what they’re getting into before signing the lease, and he encourages them to share it with their parents and SU’s Office of Student Living to ask questions.

“My business model is for you to have a good housing experience,” Tupper said. “I want my tenants to feel comfortable.”

Published on September 7, 2021 at 11:00 pm

Contact Louis: louis@dailyorange.com | @JBL__98