For many students, senior year sneaks up on you. All of a sudden you’re preparing yourself for ingress into the ‘real world,’ while also trying to balance your thesis, internships, and living your best life. Throw a beloved pet into the mix, and the entire affair may become overwhelming. Just by having a sweet dog, or cat, or bearded dragon, finding a pet friendly apartment becomes a herculean task. With so many factors to consider, your pet becomes the primary point of focus for any landlords or student housing authorities, and you find yourself making a pros and cons list. To save you the trouble, here’s one already built.
The Cons
– It’s an unfortunate reality of student housing: pet friendly apartments are not included in your tuition. If you’re looking to roll out of bed at 8:20 for your 8:30 class, you may only find leniency from the student housing department if your pet is a service animal.
– Chances are, if you’re hunting for a pet friendly student apartment, your animal’s main service is less medical and more communal. In this case, you may go the clandestine route of making your student housing unofficially “pet friendly” student housing. However, a pet friendly student apartment must come with pet friendly students. The bond you share with your roommate or roommates must be a bond sealed in puppy nose kisses. You need to be able to depend on them to cover your secret cat or parakeet if your residence advisor comes busting in, or to keep their mouths shut even if all their shoes get chewed through.
– Often, campus housing is the easiest option to ascertain where you’re going to be spending your college years. Finding a pet friendly apartment on your own can be an expensive and time consuming endeavor, especially if your campus is situated in the Finger Lakes region New York and the closest city is an hour away. Student housing, even if the rooms needed upgrades in the 80s and the showers are reminiscent of prison bathrooms, is usually the safest of your housing options.
The Pros
– Most colleges these days offer off campus housing, which is usually only available to upperclassmen. If you’re a senior with a pet, living off campus may be the best option to both keep the cost in your tuition, keep close proximity to your classes, and make your home a pet friendly apartment without a pesky residence advisor barging in at a moment’s notice.
– The real estate market has never been more saturated by younger generations than it is now. Just three years ago, 65% of real estate belonged to renters aged 35 and younger, and the number has only gone up since then. By 2017 around 43 million housing units were renter-occupied. Since commercial real estate has become an unavoidable aspect of independent living, finding a pet friendly apartment may be a great way to get a jump on the real world. Rental units for students are an overlooked sector of the rental market that may be a good place to start for seniors who want to lower the cost of college and are looking for pet friendly housing options that they won’t have to vacate come summer.
– Finding a pet friendly apartment can be daunting. If you know you’ll need to find pet friendly housing you need to hit the real estate market early, and know exactly what it is you’re looking for. But the pay-off is immeasurable. Student housing tends to be overpriced at universities, and often barely meet the qualifications to be student friendly, let alone pet friendly. By looking into the rental option you set yourself and your pet up for success by making a fiscally sound decision.
