“I think it is a great opportunity for (students),” said Emily Mugerian, office assistant at Cron Management, which markets apartments and a variety of houses and duplexes throughout East Lansing.

“(The housing fair) … makes it easy for students to start narrowing down their choices,” Mugerian said.

DTN Management Co., MSU Live On, Abbott Place apartments and several housing landlords were among the other companies and people at the event.

Jack Serivens, a contractor who lives in Brighton, Mich., and rents houses in East Lansing on Melrose Avenue and Cornell Avenue, said landlords aren’t common at the housing fair.

“There is only probably less than half a dozen of all the landlords out there (at this event),” Serivens said.

To keep students on campus, MSU Live On is focused on highlighting the newly renovated dorms on campus, campus events, the amount of food available to students through meal plans and the ability students have to meet other students in their neighborhood.

“There is not much difference at all with living on-campus or off-campus,” said Gresham Halstead, a criminal justice and political science senior and student supervisor for MSU Live On. “I live off-campus now, but I lived in the residence halls for two years, and I still hang out with all the guys and girls I met my freshman and sophomore year.”

The reasons for students choosing to live off-campus vary, but the most common reason tends to be the freedom students want to experience, he said.

“College students are striving for that independence,” Mugerian said.

Holding the housing fair at the Union was very helpful because of the location and how accessible it is for underclassmen to see the off-campus housing options, special education sophomore Morgan Lawler said.

“I feel like the (off-campus housing people) are more honest when you are face-to-face,” she said.
“I didn’t actually know at first that different representatives from off-campus apartments would be (at the housing fair).”