Do You Want a Free Place for Your Kid to Live While in College?
You can turn your kid’s years at UGA in Athens into a financial gain as opposed to throwing money away on rent month after month. Here’s 4 reasons you should consider buying an investment property in Athens.
Photos of just a few of the many problems with Faith’s current rental
Rents in Athens are high. The average rent for a UGA student is over $1000 a month. Often student rentals are done per bedroom with the more bedrooms in an apartment leading to slightly lower rents. If a rental is within walking distance of UGA you will get well over the $1000 a bedroom. Parking passes at UGA are not guaranteed and even if you get a parking pass, the parking lot can be more than 30 minutes away from classes by bus. As a parent, you are looking at well over $12,000 a year in rent. Why not have your kid’s roommates help pay your mortgage on the rental instead of paying money on rent you will never see again?
Property values continue to rise in Athens. When the recession hit in 2009, Athens kept its property value at a greater rate than anywhere else in Georgia. There are of course dips in the market but if you can hold on to a property if a dip comes, you should always be able to get your money out of it especially if you have a Realtor® helping guide you on the better places to invest in property in Athens.
You have control over where your child lives. I have a rental property in Athens I bought for my kids to live in, but when it came time for my daughter Faith to find a place to live after dorm life, the timing didn’t work out for her to live in our rental. She worked hard to find a place priced under market rent in Athens. However, when we went to move her in this August, her apartment was a far cry from the model she and her roommates had been shown. The fridge was literally sinking through the rotted floor, it was filthy and crawling with roaches. I learned that as long as the landlord is making efforts to correct the issues, you can’t get out of your lease. The floor has been fixed, the four girls scrubbed the apartment for 8 hours straight, and they are seeing fewer roaches, but that is not the experience you want for your child as they have their first truly independent living. When you own a property you can make sure your child is living in a safe and clean place and provide that for their roommates as well!
Short term rentals become a possibility. Athens has passed some pretty stringent Airbnb rules in the last years. (You can read my blog HERE to get the details.) Depending on where you buy your property, if the Home Owners Association doesn’t have rules against short term rentals, you should have a work around to be able to rent for game days which in Athens can mean 1000’s of dollars per weekend. Of course this would mean your child couldn’t be there for those game days (and would have to have the place looking good), but this really is something to consider to offset the cost of the property. And my understanding (I am not a CPA!) is that if you rent for 14 days or less you don’t even have to pay income tax on that money.
In Athens, fall is the time of the year that students start committing to where they will live the following August. Over the years, I have helped many parents buy property for their kids and can help you navigate the pros and cons of buying in various areas of Athens. It also seems to be tipping to a buyer’s market which makes now an excellent time to buy any property.
