These college students need a lesson on LBYM

EarlyandLate said:
Check out how Georgia Tech students live.
atlanta.urbanize.city

Rooftop at new Georgia Tech apartment building is bananas

"Huge Jumbotron," private shuttle to campus called top perks at Theory Interlock
atlanta.urbanize.city atlanta.urbanize.city
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I know where this is. I lived nearby until recently. This is not what we used to think of as "student housing." This is off-campus, for-profit housing, and there are quite a few others like it sprinkled about the area. GA Tech still has on-campus housing.
 
Lorenzo said:
I know where this is. I lived nearby until recently. This is not what we used to think of as "student housing." This is off-campus, for-profit housing, and there are quite a few others like it sprinkled about the area. GA Tech still has on-campus housing.
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It seems to be the same at most big universities... I know that at Texas there are a LOT of expensive high rises in the 'West Campus' as my DD insists to live there... the more affordable units have been demolished... you have to go out a distance to get a more affordable place..

BTW, they still have on campus student housing that is the basic dorm, but they are pretty expensive also...
 
Lorenzo said:
I know where this is. I lived nearby until recently. This is not what we used to think of as "student housing." This is off-campus, for-profit housing, and there are quite a few others like it sprinkled about the area. GA Tech still has on-campus housing.
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I recall about 30 years ago someone built condos (more like town houses, really) off campus near my alma mater. Anyone could have purchased units in these new buildings, but they were being advertised (and sold) as a way to beat the high cost of student housing (and off-campus rentals.) Parents would purchase the units, let their kids stay in the units and then sell to the next "generation" of students, 3 or 4 years later (heh, heh, or maybe 5.)

DW and I looked at these units last year and realized they were totally trashed and had some really scary people living in them now. Even the parking areas and access ways were full of potholes and were dangerous to navigate in a car.

So perhaps early "adopters" came out okay, but the concept was apparently doomed from the beginning. I don't know if it was that college students didn't (don't) take care of a property or if the original buildings were junk to begin with. In any case, I wouldn't have taken one of the current units for free - at least not if I had to live in it. YMMV
 
Just throwing out a thought on the above post...

Maybe the board was not interested in maintaining the building as they knew they were there for a short time... and even if the board did try to maintain it they could have been voted down by the unit holders..
 
Texas Proud said:
Just throwing out a thought on the above post...

Maybe the board was not interested in maintaining the building as they knew they were there for a short time... and even if the board did try to maintain it they could have been voted down by the unit holders..
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I'm sure there are some really bad boards. I often have minor disagreements with our board (and especially dislike the "tone" of a couple of the members.) BUT, for the most part, our board focuses on keeping the building in good repair and covering for future expenses. The downside is that our dues go up faster than the general rate of inflation. YMMV
 
Koolau said:
I'm sure there are some really bad boards. I often have minor disagreements with our board (and especially dislike the "tone" of a couple of the members.) BUT, for the most part, our board focuses on keeping the building in good repair and covering for future expenses. The downside is that our dues go up faster than the general rate of inflation. YMMV
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Yea, but I bet your condo has people that plan on living there long term... which was my point...

If you only plan to live there 4 years why pay extra to keep the place up... let the new owner pay for repairs and maintenance when you sell... but then they say... let the new new owner pay and repeat... no real work gets done and the place goes to crap...
 
Texas Proud said:
Yea, but I bet your condo has people that plan on living there long term... which was my point...

If you only plan to live there 4 years why pay extra to keep the place up... let the new owner pay for repairs and maintenance when you sell... but then they say... let the new new owner pay and repeat... no real work gets done and the place goes to crap...
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But with an HOA, paying or not paying is not an option. If you own a unit, you must pay or face legal consequences (with the ultimate sanction being a lean against your unit.)
 
Koolau said:
But with an HOA, paying or not paying is not an option. If you own a unit, you must pay or face legal consequences (with the ultimate sanction being a lean against your unit.)
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BUT, if all the units are owned by short term owners the HOA will not make sure that the finances are done properly... that is my point... and at least where my mom used to live the unit owners could override the HOA with a vote of the unit holders... it is not like they could force them to pay of all voted not to do so...
 
Texas Proud said:
BUT, if all the units are owned by short term owners the HOA will not make sure that the finances are done properly... that is my point... and at least where my mom used to live the unit owners could override the HOA with a vote of the unit holders... it is not like they could force them to pay of all voted not to do so...
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Our by-laws appoint the board to handle the finances. IOW if they say that HOA dues will go up 10%, the members can't over ride that. Your only real voting choice is which people to elect as board members.

I'm not certain who would be a "short term" owner or why they would want to be short term owners (en masse, anyway.) Obviously, there are always a few folks who buy and then sell out in a few years or there are folks who have been there for many years and then must sell out for health/death reasons. BUT for the most part, our building is reasonably stable in terms of owners. We might have half a dozen units sell in a year out of well over 100.

We do get a few grumbles at our annual meetings, but for the most part, our board is pretty well liked and the make-up is relatively stable with slow additions and removals over time.

HOAs in general have lots of issues but ours is, for the most part, pretty good at their j*b and pretty pleasant about it (again, for the most part.) YMMV
 
College students can be really hard on a building.

As for decor, we used milk crates liberated from behind the store.
 
Lorenzo said:
I know where this is. I lived nearby until recently. This is not what we used to think of as "student housing." This is off-campus, for-profit housing, and there are quite a few others like it sprinkled about the area. GA Tech still has on-campus housing.
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Yea, that's just an apartment building near the campus. DS went to GT and his campus housing was decent but nothing spectacular. Basically left-over athlete housing from the Atlanta Olympics - 4 bedrooms sharing two baths with a common kitchen and tiny living room.
 
Koolau said:
Our by-laws appoint the board to handle the finances. IOW if they say that HOA dues will go up 10%, the members can't over ride that. Your only real voting choice is which people to elect as board members.

I'm not certain who would be a "short term" owner or why they would want to be short term owners (en masse, anyway.) Obviously, there are always a few folks who buy and then sell out in a few years or there are folks who have been there for many years and then must sell out for health/death reasons. BUT for the most part, our building is reasonably stable in terms of owners. We might have half a dozen units sell in a year out of well over 100.

We do get a few grumbles at our annual meetings, but for the most part, our board is pretty well liked and the make-up is relatively stable with slow additions and removals over time.

HOAs in general have lots of issues but ours is, for the most part, pretty good at their j*b and pretty pleasant about it (again, for the most part.) YMMV
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I guess you are not getting it... we are talking about condos that are near a large college that are bought by parents to house their kids for 4 or 5 years and then sell them... not many people are going to want to live there full time since the vast majority are students... the parents do not want to put a lot of money into them as they are short term owners..

You are trying to look at YOUR condo and transfer that to a college condo... they are very different...

On the other item, my mom's condo (not a college one) the owners could ask for a vote up or down on any of the decisions made by the board... if it were not popular they would ask for the vote... it happened a couple of times.. the one that I do know that was voted down was the board wanted to make a really nice circle driveway... the owners just did not care..
 
Texas Proud said:
I guess you are not getting it... we are talking about condos that are near a large college that are bought by parents to house their kids for 4 or 5 years and then sell them... not many people are going to want to live there full time since the vast majority are students... the parents do not want to put a lot of money into them as they are short term owners..

You are trying to look at YOUR condo and transfer that to a college condo... they are very different...

On the other item, my mom's condo (not a college one) the owners could ask for a vote up or down on any of the decisions made by the board... if it were not popular they would ask for the vote... it happened a couple of times.. the one that I do know that was voted down was the board wanted to make a really nice circle driveway... the owners just did not care..
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In post 79 I described your precise situation and I agree that such a situation is terrible IF there is no strong HOA Board to keep things stable. WITH a strong HOA Board, it shouldn't matter whether you're talking parents buying for students or a bunch of 55+ planning to die in the building in 30 years.

A really good Board will keep the place up. A bad Board will ruin a place. It also assumes that the HOA has adequate By-laws and rules/regulations and that they are enforced. Obviously, the condos I described had none of the above and are a waste land now. YMMV
 
I will say I know a lot of people who buy homes where their kids go to school, rent out rooms and then sell it when their kids leave. I wouldn't say that's spoiled, but a good investment possibly (not necessarily depends). It's not spoiled. I would not consider them spoiled. Maybe the parents like being landlords and owning properties.

Now paying $5k for an interior designer? Is nuts. But i wouldn't do it for myself so I guess I don't see the reason for it.
 
FedRetired50 said:
Article title: Tuition: $9,400. Dorm Room Interior Designer: $10,000?

"This year, she had more than 200 dorm clients, requiring 25 seasonal employees. She charges about $10,000 per room ($5,000 per student) for the full service, which requires Ms. Montgomery and her team to arrive on move-in day and put together the rooms from scratch."

Paywall, I don't have an account so I can't unlock it (sent to me by a friend who did).
www.nytimes.com

Tuition: $9,400. Dorm Room Interior Designer: $10,000?

Some students arrive on campus expecting certain comforts. And they, or their parents, are willing to pay thousands to settle in.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
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The train has left the station long ago. Easy loans. Little scrutiny of Big Academia. Grandiose campuses. Anything from sushi to "gyms" is a need and by golly, play those sports at well beyond fun levels.

Flipside - be it thru investing or owning businesses or being in position of responsibility, many ways to exploit, profit from, and even early retire thanks to the mindset and 'normal' standards that have taken hold.

Also good is that they'll have to work longer. Which is good - maybe the 21% Social Security Cut I've planned for won't be so bad and I'll have extra money :)
 
It's the paradox of thrift - good for us individually; bad for the economy if everyone does it.
 
skipro33 said:
I found Calc II and III harder than Differential equations. Heck I found Linear Algebra harder. And I mean "real" Linear Algebra with proofs and all the abstract concepts, not just matrix algebra.
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A bit OT but a funny memory. Elementary Ed majors with a Math concentration had to take either Baby Calculus (didn’t count for us Math majors) or Linear Algebra. Many chose the latter because “Algebra” sounded easier. We never saw a matrix in the first academic quarter- all theory and proofs. The Elementary Ed majors disappeared.
 
Owning half of a duplex for my son to attend college was a good financial decision for us. And my son learned a lot about home maintenance and running a household budget by renting out the other 2 rooms. Win/win for all of us.
 
Are today's parents of college students simply wealthier than decades ago? Or was I just not acquainted with how the other half lives?

In college, with very few exceptions, none of my friends had parents who were in a position to buy a property for their kid to live in. We all came from modest homes, some lower middle class, most very middle class, and a few upper middle class, but none of the type with vacation homes and that sort of thing. Most of us were on financial aid to one extent or another. Only a very few of us had a car, and even then it was a hand-me-down from those upper middle class parents.
 
There has always been the rich kids and the poor kids... even today... my DD does not believe it except when I prove to her I am right... less than 50% of the students at her big state U has a car... and a lot have to live a distance from the school to afford their rent...

The difference is that the people here mostly fall in the 'rich kid' category...
 
My dorm was a double - two guys in a room 12x12. Beds, dressers, desks, closet. Seemed roomy and I did two years in the dorm. Had fun, could party and study. My DS stayed in the same dorm same size room - a triple with 3 (bunkbeds and loft bed) crammed into the same space -- he couldn't get out of there fast enough.
 
Gumby said:
It's the paradox of thrift - good for us individually; bad for the economy if everyone does it.
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Heh, heh, from everything I've seen, we don't have to worry about everyone doing it - not even close.
 
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