One year after new downtown apartments flooded the Bloomington housing market, local landlords are adjusting to the growing competition to attract student renters.\n"Competition is greater," said Linda Brown of CS Property Management. "Some of the older properties don't have all of the amenities that the new ones do. Let's face it -- a lot of people like new apartments."\nThe job has gotten tougher after more than 700 people moved downtown to lease apartments last fall, said Talisha Coppock, the director of the downtown Bloomington commission.\nThe impact of the new downtown facilities, like Smallwood Apartments and 10th and College, is different for local landlords. Most rental agencies are making adjustments to their properties to make them more competitive in a crowded market.\nThese adjustments likely favor students as some landlords can't raise lease rates in order to stay competitive. Other property leasers have added features such as free Internet to attract potential tenants.
WIRES AND GRILLS \nTommy Guthrie is the general manager of Varsity Properties, which owns about 260 units in Bloomington. During last year's leasing season, Guthrie said he leased 92 percent of his properties, which are usually 100 percent full for the year.\n"A lot of them are by the bars and a lot of students want to live by the bars," Guthrie said. "Whenever the new stuff is built it usually hits the Villas for that year. Last year was the toughest we've had in a long time."\nTo help correct the vacancies, Varsity Properties is adding free high-speed wireless Internet to all its villas. In addition, Guthrie said he would like to continue fostering a friendly relationship between landlord and tenant. \nHe has reached out in the past to student renters with handouts of about 1,000 football tickets to the opening game last season and by grilling free hot dogs and hamburgers on nice days.\n"People that live with us nine out of 10 times love us," Guthrie said. "You can't make everyone love you, but most do."\nGuthrie's competitive changes have been successful, he said, as Varsity Properties are currently 96 percent full and will likely reach the 100 percent mark soon for fall 2005. He said he's also had tenants leave Varsity Properties only to return next year.\nWhile Varsity Properties is just adding free Internet, Smallwood includes different amenities with the rent. They include utilities such as cable, heat, water and Internet as well as a Cardinal Fitness membership, which is located on the ground floor of the complex.
MONEY MATTERS\nThe flooded housing market will likely have financial benefits for IU students as well.\nSpencer Hudgins Real Estate leases 13 buildings in Bloomington ranging from single rooms to full-sized houses. While students move downtown, co-owner Marjorie Hudgins said her lease rates have stayed the same as her expenses climb. \nHudgins said she can't raise her lease rates to compensate for increases in expenses such as property taxes and maintenance.\nThe downtown apartments have also caused the extension of local landlords' leasing seasons. It took Hudgins around a month longer than it usually takes her to lease her properties.\nMeanwhile, Smallwood's lease rates are rolling along. The apartment complex has leased 93 percent of its 223 units for August 2005 compared to 75 percent last year, said Kara Cornwell general manager for NEXTWAVE, which is the management company for Smallwood.\nThe reason for the increase, Cornwell said, is a matter of show and tell. During last year's leasing season, Smallwood was being built. This year, Smallwood is fully completed.\n"Since it's a new property, I think the difference from this year to last year is that the product's there to see," Cornwell said. "People have been able to see and experience it, and they like what they see."\nWhile it appears more people want to live at Smallwood, the number of people who are returning to live another year increased as well.\nThe average retention rate for Bloomington, Cornwell said, is 25 percent. Smallwood has achieved 33 percent retention for next fall, she said.\nNEXTWAVE also leases 250 other apartment units locally. Like Hudgins, she didn't know how the new downtown apartments would impact her other properties. NEXTWAVE didn't raise lease rates or lower them.\nBut that could change once the market settles.\n"We could do some light increases next year because the market was kind of waiting to see what happens," Cornwell said. "We haven't seen the demand lessen for the products we provide."
HISTORY LESSON\nThe construction of new facilities like Smallwood isn't the first time downtown Bloomington has offered such apartments. Hudgins, who's leased properties since 1969 in Bloomington, pointed to the Poplars Building on Seventh Street.\nThe Poplars were built as a privately owned women's dormitory in the 1960s, said Daryl Brawthen, who then worked for the company before being employed by IU.\nLike Smallwood, Poplars had more amenities than a normal dorm with a swimming pool, a sauna and a bathroom shared by two connecting rooms, Brawthen said.\nThere were construction delays however, and the building wasn't finished until October of 1963 when the school year started in September, Brawthen said. He estimates the Poplars closed in 1967, four years after it opened. The University then purchased the building and currently uses it for office space.\nBesides the delays, the expensive price of the Poplars also contributed to its decline, Brawthen said.\n"The dorm cost more than the average dorm, but the rich fathers didn't get rich by spending it on their daughters," Brawthen said. "It was substantially higher than the regular dorms."\nIn the 1960s, $1,500 could have likely afforded an entire year's rent in Bloomington. Four decades later, the smallest 2005 lease rate at Smallwood starts at $1,045 a month for a two-bedroom apartment, according to its Web site. For two people living on campus at Foster Quad, for example, each person pays $3,316 for the academic year, according to the Residential Programs and Services Web site.\nJunior Will Douglas will live in Smallwood next year. Douglas, who uses student loans to pay for his tuition and his housing, said paying more rent to live in Smallwood will be worth it for him.\n"I'm living with people I want to live with and it's going to be a great year," Douglas said.\nStudents like Douglas, who are willing to pay more money to live in a relatively new apartment, are the reality in today's Bloomington housing market as the impact of the new downtown housing complexes still lingers for property managers of older housing like Guthrie.\n"I think we'll be fine," Guthrie of Varsity Properties said. "It just took a year or a two out of us."\n-- Contact Staff Writer John \nRodgers at jprodger@indiana.edu.
