Sophomore Alex Brooks sleeps on an air mattress Sunday evening in front of the Community Resource Management Company building, 251 W. Grand River Ave. Brooks camped out at CRMC Sunday night to make sure he got the property he and his friends wanted for next year.
Only six weeks into the fall semester, students are feeling the pressure to choose next year’s living arrangements.
Dozens of MSU students camped out during the weekend to get a head start on signing leases with Community Resource Management Company, or CRMC, at 251 W. Grand River Ave. CRMC started accepting applications for leases from people new to the company at its more than 400 apartments and houses Monday, CRMC President Joe Goodsir said.
At least one person from a group of renters had to be in line all weekend in order to be eligible for the Monday morning applications, anthropology sophomore Andrew Jasmer said.
Although waiting in line does not guarantee the property, getting a head start is worth the effort, he said.
“We waited all weekend to get first pick,” said Jasmer, who is planning on living with five other people. “We started Friday afternoon with a few of us trading off shifts.”
Twenty-one properties were applied for Monday, Goodsir said. About one quarter of its properties are occupied by returning renters or those transferring to other CRMC properties, he said.
The early lease sign-up has been a gradual shift as students have asked to sign leases for properties earlier and earlier each year, Goodsir said. Students have pitched tents on CRMC’s front lawn for about eight or nine years, he said.
“Years ago, people started coming in at 3 or 4 a.m. in the morning on Monday,” Goodsir said. “Each year it kind of got pushed back and pushed back as people were wanting a certain house (or apartment).”
The main reason for the urgency is getting a desirably located property, he said.
Being close to campus and the downtown night scene is important, dietetics junior Kacey Klem said. Klem said her housing decision was somewhat rushed; she chose her roommates only days before turning in the lease application.
“It’s frustrating because it’s so early in the year,” she said. “You’re just getting settled in the place you’re in.”
The pressure to make a decision early in the year about living arrangements for the following year can lead to bad decisions, said Annette Irwin, East Lansing code enforcement operations administrator.
“The people who are in a house (now), they haven’t been there long enough to know if they want to stay,” she said. “It seems like the biggest problem is you sign up to live somewhere with a set group of people and a year later you may not want to live together.”
Students should be cautious when making a final decision of where to live, she said. A lease is a legal contract, Irwin said.
“When you sign to live somewhere, you have committed,” she said. “It’s a pretty big deal when you sign that document.”
The fear of ending up without a place to go or no roommates drives students to make quick decisions, Klem said.
“If you don’t figure it out, ‘I don’t want to be out living on my own,’ or if something falls through and people don’t pay, it’s frustrating,” she said.
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