7A- Testing the Hypothesis, Part 1

College students in Gainesville, Florida do not have access to residence leases that align with their schedule or needs.

·      The who: College students in Gainesville

·      The what: They cannot get leases that align with the times they are in school and the time they are not in need of leases

·      The why: Apartment companies and landlords are not willing to lease based on semesters rather than standard, yearly leases.

This opportunity being identified here is a residential property leasing company offering leases aligned with student semester schedules such as fall, spring and summer that are easily renewable and available to very early on.

·      Testing the who: Others who may have this who are college students in other college towns aside from Gainesville. Cities like Tallahassee near Florida State University may have students with the same need as in Gainesville.

·      Testing the what: The boundaries of this need are many students do spend a year in Gainesville, meaning they will be looking for full year leases. Also, it is more difficult to consistently keep no vacancy

·      Testing the why: Students who plan on being in Gainesville full time for a year without leaving may not see the benefit as much to a semester based lease that does not lock them into a contract for a full year. However, there is appeal to even these students. Many students live with random roommates or people they are unsure if they will enjoy living with. Instead of being stuck in a full-year lease with these people, they are able to get out and live with other people after 4 months. If they are fond of them, they can resign as quickly as they’d like.

Interviews:

1)    When trying to find variety in customers, I decided to search for a student who was interested in a system like this but was still going to be in Gainesville for a full year. Sam Stein is a senior finance major. I chose to interview him because I learned he has previously had a bad rooming experience. During his freshman year, he decided to sign a lease for an apartment with friends who he had recently met because the complexes start leasing very early. Unfortunately, he did not know these people very well but believed he would enjoy living with them. In the next 6-8 months until his lease started, he realized how different he was from them and how this could be a problem. He ended up living with them for a year and not enjoying it whatsoever. In our interview, he expressed adamantly that if apartments were offering semester based leases he would choose that over a year lease every time. Not only would that solve his problem of living with people he did not like, but it would enable him to leave for summer and potentially get an internship in different cities he says. He also believes it is ridiculous that apartment complexes expect you to know almost a year before you move in where you want to live and who you want to live with (Some Gainesville apartment complexes start leasing for August as early as the October of the year before)

2)    Ophir Rahimi is a Sophomore in the innovation academy program. This UF program is designed for students to get a UF degree in a unique way by taking classes during spring and summer instead of the traditional fall and spring. He has had significant difficulty figuring out ways to have an apartment for the spring and summer without fall. He believes it is impossible and that he will have to choose whether to accept the cost of rent during fall when he is not there or live in the apartment instead of at home while he is not in classes. He believes semester based apartment leases is something that would relieve significant stress and distraction from his life and he would be willing to pay slightly more per month because he is ultimately saving more and significantly less inconvenienced.

3)    For my first prototypical customer, I interviewed a girl named Sara Setian. Sara is a PR student who studied abroad in Australia last spring. Over a year before her trip began, she had known she was going. Based on our interview, Sara was stressed very early on at the thought of her living arrangement for the school year she was going to Australia. She knew right away she would not be able to afford paying for two apartments at once. As soon as Sara had decided she was going abroad, this became a problem for her which she had severe difficulty solving. In her eyes, she had a few options of things she could do to solve her problem. The first option was to find someone she can sublease from for the Fall semester only. While Sara knew this would be the easiest solution, Sara was concerned of the reliability of subleasing from a stranger and did not want to live with strangers she did not know at all. Her second option was to sign a lease to live with her friends and attempt to find someone to sublease from her when she left. She concerns here were that she did not know if she could reliably find someone, she did not know if she would be able to get her full rent covered by the person subleasing and she did not know how her roommates would feel about this. Ultimately, while Sara expressed adamantly that she felt there was no good solution, she decided to sign a lease with her friends. Sara got lucky and was able to sublease for the spring semester to a girl in her sorority, but she was still responsible for paying a small portion of her rent because of their agreement. Additionally, Sara was responsible for paying her rent for the summer when she was not residing in her apartment. Sara believes the one-year lease system offered by most housing complexes in Gainesville does not make sense and should be adjusted to accommodate the schedule and lifestyle of their main customers, college students.

4)    Param Mehta is a Business student studying Management at UF. The past summer, Param suffered a severely inconvenient event caused by apartment complexes in Gainesville’s poorly designed lease schedule. Before knowing he would be taking summer classes, param signed a lease for the 2018-2019 school year. He signed a one-year lease, from august 1^st of 2018 to august 1^st of 2019. While he did not expect to be there for the summer, he knew he would not be able to find a lease that ended in May when he would leave Gainesville for his summer vacation. During spring semester, Param decided he would take 6 credits during his summer C semester. This is a semester which at the time ended roughly around august 10^th-12^th (He didn’t remember the exact day). The clear issue at hand is Params lease ended August 1^st. “So I signed a lease that started august first, even though fall classes didn’t start until the 16^th and obviously the apartments know that. Paid 16 days of rent for nothing. Then, had to sleep on my friends couch for the last two weeks of school because my lease ended. I was livid.” Param was forced to move onto the couch of a friend of his who had renewed his lease and was not moving. He was very frustrated with this inconvenience and could not believe the apartments do not have more consideration for their students considering it is their primary, if not only customers. Param said he was fully willing to pay another half month of rent if it meant he could stay and he was declined. He believes an apartment that offered leases based on semesters rather than the calendar year would do very well in Gainesville.

5)    Carlos Torano is a University of Florida student majoring in Accounting currently getting his masters degree in the UF accounting program. After this semester, Carlos has one left and will be graduating in December of 2020. Currently, Carlos is struggling to find a housing arrangement that will not require him to commit to a year-long lease that will potentially have him paying rent for an entire year. “It is so stupid, why would I ever sign a year-long lease in a city I know with full certainty I will only be living in for another five months? They should offer month to month leases or shorter leases; they know who their customers are and they know what their schedules are like. It is wrong for them to lock you into these leases because they know you are desperate and there are no other options.” When asking Carlos if he knows of any other options or what he plans on doing, he explained to me that if he were to try to sublease it would be difficult because there are not many available during the fall. Most students study abroad in the spring and that is when you can find the subleases. He believes he will most likely sign a year-long lease and hope to find someone planning to sublease his apartment. Carlos also has a unique option that many students do not have. As a member of an on-campus fraternity, he is able to live in his fraternity house and sign a semester-based lease. However, for Carlos this is not an option. As a masters student, Carlos strongly believes he will not be able to focus or get proper rest in the disturbing environment a fraternity house sometimes breads. At this moment, Carlos does not know what he is going to do still. He feels there is no real solution to his problem and he suspects he will be dealing with this fiasco until he graduates, which frustrates him because he should be focusing on his difficult coursework.

Summary: Ultimately, I am confident that the who, what and why are very strong. After interviewing five individuals, I realized there are even more applications where this is applicable and desired. I believe it is so strongly desired that more money could be charged for rent.