The students may be out of town, but apartment owners aren’t worried.
Because most local apartments require that tenants sign one-year leases, which includes the summer semester, area apartment owners are not concerned about finding tenants for the summer, said Andres Tinoco, a leasing and marketing manager for University Commons.
Furthermore, despite a decreased enrollment at UF, the overall vacancy rate for area apartments is trending downward.
The apartment vacancy rate in March, the last month of available data, was 11.9 percent, down from last year’s 13 percent.
The Woodlands of Gainesville, located at 1055 SW 62nd Blvd., does not have a problem with vacancies. Until December, it was at 100 percent capacity, said Rob Wright, a property manager at the apartment complex. Wright added that since December, the Woodlands has only had a few empty units remain.
“We’ve had a handful of vacancies that have come to us, so it’s not a problem,” Wright said. “We go on campus and promote the apartments. We know that a lot of transfers come in Summer A.”
University Commons, located at 2601 SW Archer Road, is also successfully getting people to sign leases.
Some apartment managers are using financial incentives to attract tenants. University Commons, for instance, takes 10 percent off the lease price if the renter signs within 24 hours of coming in and pays by the first of every month, Tinoco said. Other apartments offer special rates specifically for the summer months.
“A lot of students will take into that,” Tinoco said. “It entices a lot of students.”
University Commons has filled most of its units because students mostly sign one-year leases, Tinoco said.
“We have a lot of people looking for sublets,” he said. “They’re trying to find people to fill their spots. The units are mostly filled up from the previous year of leasing.”
The Woodlands of Gainesville attempts to attract incoming freshmen by passing out promotional material during orientations, Wright said.
University Commons preemptively recruits new tenants by visiting local high schools that have good relationships with the university, Tinoco said.
“Nowadays, the savvier people are going to the Internet. People aren’t going to pick up a newspaper the way they used to,” Tinoco said. “People Google ‘Gainesville apartment.’ We are going to the Internet to get those people.”
