Students at Syracuse University have begun their hunt for off-campus housing earlier every year — going as far as looking at apartments over the summer.

Ben Tupper, a Syracuse landlord and owner of rentfromben.com, said when he went to SU in the late 1980s, people would begin casually talking about looking for off-campus housing a little before Thanksgiving break. It was once they returned in late November that the search for housing “spread like a virus.”

Tupper left Syracuse for a while, and when he returned in 1996 to take over his father’s real estate business he found that everybody was now looking for housing around Oct. 15. Tupper didn’t show any apartments before that date, but over the last 20 years that date has crept closer and closer to the beginning of the semester.

Elin Riggs, director of the Office of Off-Campus and Commuter Services, described the movement to get housing early as a virus. Once a few students begin talking about their search for off-campus housing and telling others they won’t get anything if they don’t start soon, it spreads to other students and parents, and before you know it people are signing leases, Riggs said.

However, Tabitha Miller, leasing director at University Hill Apartments, said she remembers a specific time peg that prompted students to search for housing.

The last week of August is when the panic really started. Campus Hill Apartments started putting up fliers and students began to get nervous about their housing, Miller said.

“Why is it early? It isn’t a riddle. It isn’t complex,” Tupper said. “It boils down to that old saying: ‘The early bird gets the worm.’”

There are only a certain amount of really nice houses that are close to campus and there is no real drawback to looking early, Tupper said.

But Riggs said she doesn’t want students to panic.

“There’s always going to be housing. This year — even in the neighborhood — there was still housing at the end of the summer,” Riggs said.

Riggs said she would prefer for students to learn about the process and take the time to figure out their budget, how this will affect their financial aid, think about what kind of apartment they want and how many people they will live with.

Students should make those decisions beforehand so when they go out to look, they are confident and can make their decisions quickly, Riggs added. If students don’t do all of this and confer with their roommates and parents, she said, that’s when the panic and sense of urgency sets in.

“If I had the influence to control the process, I would say that February or March would be a good time,” Riggs said. “I think it’s time for you to live on campus for a semester, I think it’s time for you to go home for the winter and talk to your parents about it and it’s around the time when you have to decide how the housing process goes and whether you’re going to live on campus or not.”

Tupper said the earlier start time has nothing to do with the landlords. He would prefer for it to begin in late October, since it would give him the added time to sort out any repairs that need to be made.

“Usually I have a few weeks of downtime in September, but this year I’ve been working every day of the week,” Miller said.

Tupper’s tenants had until Sept. 1 to renew their lease. Similar to other off-campus landlords, Tupper gives students an incentive to renew their lease early. If they renew by Aug. 15 or Aug. 30, they will receive a discounted rate. The sooner Tupper knows what houses will be on the market, the sooner he can start showing them to students.

After Tupper or a member of his staff shows a student an apartment, they allow them to put any apartment they are interested in on hold for 24 hours. During this time Tupper said he urges them to read over the lease, email or call him with questions, talk to a family member and go to SU Student Legal Services.

The Office of Off-Campus and Commuter Services is available to help students, but they won’t know you need help unless you ask for it, Riggs said.

“With knowledge comes power and with power comes confidence,” Riggs said. “The more confident you are walking through the process, the less likely you are to feel like you are being taken advantage of or that you will get taken advantage of.”

Riggs added that SU Student Legal Services will review a student’s lease for free.

One-third of students “make their parents proud” and follow Tupper’s instructions to go over the lease, another third have a responsible leader in the group that takes care of reviewing the lease and the other third don’t read and don’t ask.

With the introduction of new luxury buildings, it could affect the off-campus neighborhood a little bit in how people look for apartments and at what time, Riggs said.

Last week while she was driving, Riggs saw a tent outside of Park Point, a luxury apartment complex located on Comstock Avenue, and she said people camp out there and even get their parents to wait in line for them.

“You would think I would say, ‘Oh, this is making my job tough. This is making it harder for me to rent. All this new fancy stuff is coming up and I have older houses. Uh oh, uh oh, Rent from Ben is going down,” Tupper said.

Tupper said every year for the past three years he has rented out all of more than 140 apartments 15 percent faster than the year before. As of Sunday, he had already signed about 90 leases.

University Hill has also signed most of their leases with only 28 apartments left out of about 310.

Published on September 19, 2016 at 11:46 pm

Contact Stacy: sfern100@syr.edu | @StacyFernandezB