UMass Students Feel the Heat of the Apartment Hunt

Students at UMass Amherst face the chaotic race to beat the rest in finding a temporary home for their upperclassmen years to come- a full year in advance.
Students at the university find themselves on their apartment hunts a full year before they will actually move into these soon-to-be homes, beating other students to the punch as they receive potential listings from agents before others have a sliver of a chance.

“The process of finding the right apartment that would accommodate me and a large group of my friends for next year was tedious, but it was worth starting early,” says Keren Kessel, a current junior at UMass who recently began her apartment search.
Kessel and five other friends found a house for their senior year after much searching and stress, but saved themselves much hassle by starting their search well ahead of fellow students also on the house hunt.
    

The available houses and apartments for students to rent range from sizes, prices and locations of all kinds, each with a charm of their own that draw certain kinds of students. For example, some choose to live in downtown Amherst in order to be closer to the bars in town once they are (finally) of age to legally enjoy them.
The students who are lucky enough to capture one of these coveted downtown apartments or houses are frequently seen out at the local bars, even during the bitter cold evenings of the winter or the mucky, rainy days of the early spring when most older students are unmotivated to do so because they live farther away.
Others choose apartments in the Puffton Apartments, Brandywine Apartments or Southpoint Apartments. According to James Beadle, a licensed real estate agent for Eagle Crest Real Estate Agency and Property Management Company, most students who are 21 choose to live downtown.

Beadle says that most students who are searching for off campus housing search for three major things. They are either looking into the best location, best quality or lowest cost.
“Finding a house in a prime location is very competitive,” says junior Sarah Kronwith,  “a lot of the times you’re fighting with your peers for the same houses close to town. Me and my six other friends recently found a house on Triangle St. that we fell in love with for our senior year.”
Beadle recalls being a UMass student only a short time ago, and living off campus his junior and senior years. When he did his own apartment search, Beadle was concerned with finding the lowest rent, as he found himself paying for his college tuition on his own.
 According to Beadle, the market in Amherst is highly fragmented, which means there is no consolidated source. There are three major real estate companies in the town of Amherst, and Beadle claims that the benefit of Eagle Crest is their “one-stop shopping” approach for students. This approach allows for students to go to one source and receive showings of all their options from that one source rather than having to go to several other ones.

            
Although many students utilize these real estate agencies when the time has come for them to do their search, their only other options besides going straight to an agency is to know someone who is already living in a house and will be moving out, or, do their own research online.
    Beadle says that one of the problems that students face when searching for a house is not knowing who they will be living with ahead of time. This prolongs the search, according to Beadle, and is not so much a problem but rather a circumstance that needs to be dealt with.
    Also, because many students start their search so early, they do not have a mental picture of what they are looking for which shows the value of “shopping” early and seeing what’s out there for your money.
    A major difference that Beadle sees in the market now is that sophomores can live off campus, putting thousands of students into the equation, making the market “slow to react,” says Beadle.

He explains that the market is almost always UMass students, as Hampshire College requires their students to live on campus and Amherst College provides abundant on-campus housing for their students.
UMass is also five to seven times their sizes; so many UMass Amherst students have fewer options compared to others.
    
Beadle’s advice for students who will be starting their search in the future is first and foremost, “the earlier you start the better.” He also says that “It doesn’t cost any money to ‘shop around’,” and that doing so opens up a lot of options if starting out early.
Beadle also says that many students start searching as early as the beginning of school in September, and that those students have the advantage of being ahead of the game.
“I’m curious to see what my experience will be like when I start my search next fall,” says UMass sophomore, Samantha Burkholz.
   

Ian Bauer, another sophomore at UMass, currently lives off campus in a house on Rocky Hill Rd., and began to look for a house with his friends at the end of his freshman year. “It was definitely the right decision for me to live off campus, it’s a lot easier but definitely more stressful and you’re more on your own,” says Bauer. “There are a lot more responsibilities involved with living off campus, and it’s a good test to see if you can live on your own.”