<p>This is also not limited to rental situations. </p>
<p>I’ve known of several co-op/condo owner neighbors who were kick out of their respective buildings because of their hosting such over the top noisy parties that cops had to be called in to break the party up and to quiet everyone down at 3 am…in NYC. They weren’t all undergrads/recent graduates, either. A few were 50-somethings involved in some Broadway shows whose early morning antics included having a stretch limo obstruct the narrow one-way street on my block.</p>
<p>In many college towns and other cities evicting tenants is not that easy.So long as the rent is paid you could have a problem. You can’t just throw people out when they have a lease. In Seattle it is nearly impossible.</p>
<p>I really want to post “Our building does not allow dogs or undergrads” on a classy little sign next to my front door. Engraved antiqued brass or bronze. Right above the doorbell, where my kids’ friends can enjoy it. Hilarious!</p>
<p>According to this site, discrimination against college students is discrimination based on age. Furthermore, none of the students I know throw wild parties or trash their place. Some of my friends have parties yes, but you hear a muted noise in the hallway at most.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that the website you cited belongs to a law office located in California. California has some of the most far reaching anti-discrimination laws in housing. Some of those protections may not be as far reaching in other states…even ones with strong tenant protection laws like Massachusetts & NY. </p>
<p>It is also an advertisement for that law office’s services so their interpretation of the laws may not be the one necessarily agreed to by the presiding housing judge…especially if we’re talking judges outside of California.</p>
<p>If you don’t want children, just leave the lead paint there.</p>
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<p>The place that my son rented in Boston also has a no undergrad policy - this building is managed by a huge REIT and they own a lot of big apartment buildings around the country. I don’t know if they have units in California - I should check as I’m a shareholder.</p>
<p>I don’t see this. I got my college degrees in my 30s. I know people that have gone to college in their 40s, 50s, and 60s.</p>
<p>You need to be an adult to rent a place; are you saying that they should be considered children for one thing and adults for another? I imagine college students that are 17 have a hard time without a co-signer.</p>
<p>Landlords just want to protect their property. College students can do quite a bit of damage or interfere with the enjoyment of other tenants. I’ve seen this firsthand. I chatted with a coworker that owns several buildings and he goes out of his way to provide a nice place for his tenants. The attitude is sometimes not returned.</p>
<p>I agree with BCEagle. I think the Craig list ad just wanted to provide a filter. If a middle aged couple with sterling credit report and financials applied and one of them happened to also be taking college courses, is an undergrad by definition, that would very likely NOT be an impediment. The lister just didn’t want hordes of students calling.</p>
<p>I have a friend who owns some buildings in a student ghetto with a number of colleges nearby. She won’t rent to undergrads. She prefers international grad students. Her places are not up to code since there are shared bathrooms which are common in other parts of the country, so international students find it just fine and the likelihood that one of them would flag her is small. She has been doing this for over 20 years. She rents strictly through word of mouth and ads on a bulletin board. She does not specify that she will take only foreign grad students but when she takes the apps, they get the first dibs, and most of her tenants have been in that category. The few problems she has had over time has been when she made exception for her kids’ or friends’ acquaintances.</p>
<p>I’ve never been a landlord but I have been a homeowner and can appreciate what landlords have to deal with. I think that many renters that haven’t owned and maintained property take some of the things that landlords provide for granted and don’t realize the costs involved for the things that they do. In many cases, renters that own or used to own property make for better tenants as they will fix things on their own instead of calling the landlord as they know how to do it or would rather just eat the cost or labor as opposed to having the landlord come down for a minor repair.</p>
<p>I understand legal protections for tenants (I took a law class at BC a long time ago that went over landlord-tenant law in great detail) and why they may be needed but you need a balancing act. If the landlord has to do everything and deal with everyone, then they will need some kind of compensation for that. Eventually.</p>
<p>I sometimes get the feeling that people think that landlords are evil people - from tenants. For the most part, landlords are real people - just trying to make some money from their properties without getting damaged.</p>
One of the problems with undergrads is that they are more likely to only stay for one year. So you have the inevitable damage that comes with moving furniture, etc. in and out of an apartment. (And virtually never professionally.) We have high end units that we don’t rent to students, and we also have student apartments which we only rent to students, grad or undergrad.</p>
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This is absolutely true. There are a lot of people who have never owned apartments who have no idea what goes into being a landlord.</p>
<p>I’ve seen how some undergraduates live, I don’t blame the landlords. They have to protect their property, and they might lose other customers who don’t want to live next to a loud undergrad. </p>
<p>When I was doing my PhD, the landlord in my building allowed some undergrads in one of the 4 apartments. These were undergrads from an expensive private school ranked top 15 by US News. </p>
<p>By mid year, I had to break my contract and moved and 2 other tenants left (a young family and a lawyer) because we couldn’t handle the noise (the police came often), the vomit in the stairs and the smell of marihuana. It was probably not worth it for the landlord lo lose 3 tenants.</p>
<p>In which the student status is not the true filter; the true filter here is as you admit, is age.</p>
<p>One could justify further discrimination by observing that white male undergraduates are disproportionately more likely to cause trouble; Asian undergraduates are quieter more well-behaved.</p>
<p>Sure, but you could say that white renters make for better tenants than black renters; or people without kids make better than people with kids; or that single people make for better renters than couples; or that abled people make for better renters than disabled, etc.</p>
<p>Undergraduates are not a protected class. Many landlords just restrict undergrads by asking for a credit report, this person in Craiglist was just more transparent. Discriminating on the basis of race is illegal, not on the basis of being an undergrad.</p>
<p>If you had to rent a unit to anyone that showed up outside your door, the market for apartment rentals would disappear.</p>