Students have impact on rental housing

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Finding rental housing in center city or north Springfield could be seen as a challenge this time of year. With the high volume of students who come to the city to attend one of its six colleges or universities, it's inevitable that many of them will seek rental housing off campus. |ret||ret||tab|

Lynn Richards, executive director of the Springfield Apartment & Housing Association, said it's difficult to determine the exact number of rental properties available, whether single-family homes, apartments or duplexes. She said SAHA uses census numbers to get an approximate figure, and according to the 1990 census, there were 29,000 rental units available in the city.|ret||ret||tab|

She said even without exact numbers, she knows there's no shortage of available rental housing in the city.|ret||ret||tab|

"In 1995 and 1996 there was a growth and development spurt. There were several large, multi-family developments that came online in that same period, which brought about a lot of availability," she said. |ret||ret||tab|

In the city of Springfield, properties that have more than two units or apartments have to be licensed. According to the city's licensing office, there are now approximately 2,050 licensed multi family housing units, which does not include nonprofit housing developments.|ret||ret||tab|

Drury University, for example, has 766 beds available in on-campus housing, which includes dormitories, fraternity houses and College Park Apartments, according to Marie Johnson, director of housing at Drury. She said because Drury is a residential university, its students are required to live on campus unless they are married, are single parents, are older than 21, or live within a commutable distance to the school. Students taking evening courses also are not required to live on campus she said.|ret||ret||tab|

Tristan Davies, assistant director of public relations for news at Drury, said the school generally has about 1,400 traditional undergraduate students who attend day classes and must either live on the campus or meet the criteria to live elsewhere. |ret||ret||tab|

Southwest Missouri State University has 3,748 beds available in student housing, said Gary Stewart, asistant director of reisdence life and services at SMSU.|ret||ret||tab|

He said that number varies by semester because the school has some housing that's reserved for nontraditional students.|ret||ret||tab|

SMSU's official enrollment for the fall 2000 semester won't be determined until Sept. 20, but according to the university's office of enrollment services, opening-day enrollment on the Springfield campus was 16,594.|ret||ret||tab|

Stewart said SMSU's policy requires students to live on campus until they have completed 60 credit hours or reach 21 years of age. He said SMSU does not require married students to live on campus, or students who commute from homes up to 60 miles away.|ret||ret||tab|

Stewart said right now, one residence hall, Wells Hall, is being renovated and isn't open for student use. He said because of that, the school's board of governors has relaxed the hours-completed requirement to 24 hours, which allows more students to live off campus. He said Wells is scheduled to reopen in August 2001, and when it does, the school will increase the hours-completed requirement to between 24 and 60 hours, depending on the size of the incoming freshman class in fall 2001.|ret||ret||tab|

Richards said as difficult as it is to gauge the number of rental housing units available, it's even harder to determine the number of college students who rent them. She said that's because students don't always stay in the part of the city closest to the school they're attending, and also because some students live in single family homes, while others live in homes that are divided into apartments.|ret||ret||tab|

She said students aren't a protected class, which makes it OK for property owners to choose not to rent to college students. She said when that does happen, it's usually an economic decision.|ret||ret||tab|

"Students are only here nine months of the year. They might be able to rent (to students) from the beginning of August to the end of May, but that's only 10 months," she said.|ret||ret||tab|

"You've got 12 months in a year, so it's a choice between having vacant units two months a year, or deciding not to rent to college students and going ahead and looking for someone to fulfill a whole year's lease," Richards added.|ret||ret||tab|

Bryan Magers, owner of Bryan Properties, has about 200 student rentals near SMSU and Drury including Walnut Street Apartments, Kimbrough Apartments and Jefferson Park Apartments. Magers said student renters are required to sign leases for an entire year. |ret||ret||tab|

"Most of them stay and they work, they're year-round people. They're older students. If one of the roommates, for instance, will not be in town, they usually end up getting someone themselves to move in," Magers said.|ret||ret||tab|

Magers noted that the closing of Wells Hall on the SMSU campus has made this a good year for his properties within walking distance of the campus, and when that dormitory reopens, the rental housing market is likely to become more competitive.|ret||ret||tab|

Judi Samuel, broker and co-owner of Debco, said Debco manages approximately 1,600 rental units, including Springfield, Ozark and Nixa. Samuel said the majority of Debco's tenants aren't college students.|ret||ret||tab|

Debco also requires yearly leases from student tenants. She said the company doesn't usually have trouble keeping its units full.|ret||ret||tab|

Samuel said Debco is careful to comply with a city rule that prohibits renting a single unit or property to more than three unrelated people. |ret||ret||tab|

Other than that, she said, the biggest problem with student renters is that they don't always leave properties as clean as they found them, but she said as far as she's concerned, students are an asset to all rental property owners.|ret||ret||tab|

"Even if you don't fill up your units with students, just the fact that they're filling up other units affects all of the rental market," she said. "Their influx into town helps you rent everything, just because of supply and demand."|ret||ret||tab|

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