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The Badger Herald

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UW Housing Fair perpetuates early lease-signing culture

UW Housing Fair perpetuates early lease-signing culture
Joey Reuteman

If you live downtown, you’ve already been asked by your landlord if you plan on staying next year. Around two months into your lease, your management company (JSM, Steve Brown, MPM, pick your poison) thinks you’ve had enough time to decide if you like your roommates (and your proximity to campus or the bars) enough to agree to another year locked into your lease.

“Hurry re-sign now!” they say.

“Don’t miss out, sign now!” you’ll read.

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That’s some grade-A bullshit.

The leasing season is about to begin, signaling another year of one of the most anti-student customs in Madison. Why does the leasing start so early when you’ve only lived in your apartment for less than three months?

There is not any one reason why the leasing season starts so early. One possibility is that the landlords likely operate on short-term financing and need to roll over their loans frequently to continue getting good rates and making money. In order to get these loans, they would need to show that their apartments are being leased – and ideally leased as long into the future as possible. If they can get some shmuck to sign a lease in November of 2014, they could use that to demonstrate that they’ve got cash flowing in until August of 2016. Another possibility is simply that by creating the demand this early, it ensures occupancy in the shortest period of time removing uncertainty on their end. Regardless of why leasing starts so early, it is a detriment to students.

The Associated Students of Madison originally created the University of Wisconsin Housing Fair five or six years ago as a method of urging landlords to push back the traditional Nov. 15 leasing date. Every year students would rush to sign leases the first possible day with thousands of others, worried that if they didn’t get something before Thanksgiving, everything would be gone. The goal of the Housing Fair was to provide an official “start” of the leasing season with the intention of pushing the Housing Fair back a week or so every year until it took place early in the second semester, a time where it is much more reasonable to sign a lease for the next year.

It looks like ASM has dropped the ball on this some time in the past few years. You might’ve heard the UW Housing Fair is taking place this year Nov. 6. With the hilariously ironic slogan of “Don’t rush to sign a lease,” this fair is less than 25 percent into your current lease and UW staff and ASM leaders think that’s an appropriate time to get the ball rolling on next year’s lease. Do you really want to sign a lease committing you financially 21 months into the future?

Some apartments will go quick. If you are absolutely dead-set on living on the top floor of the newest luxury high rise, yeah, you might want to sign a lease early. But if you, like everyone else, are more interested in a place that is relatively affordable, isn’t five miles from campus, and doesn’t moonlight as a resort destination for the Rodents of Unusual Size Convention every January, you can certainly wait.

Please, for the love of Bucky, wait to sign your lease. You should be able to experience at least 25 percent of your lease before thinking about the next one. Actually turn on your heat and make sure that the sweet apartment in September doesn’t become the ninth circle of Hell in January.

ASM, get back involved. After tuition, largest cost for students is housing and they deserve to have their elected representatives do something about it. The fair is irresponsibly early and a disservice to students. I know the current group of ASM leaders didn’t drop the ball here, but it’s a fine time to pick it back up and improve on the original. The state legislature removed a ton of renter protections over the past few years and this could be a good way to nudge Madison renters to do right by students. Maybe next year, ASM can insist that all companies that have a presence at the housing fair agree to honor things they were previously obligated to do, like abiding by the photo ordinance for security deposit deductions. This is a low bar to jump over but a good step for student rights and could be a good win for ASM.

Life pro-tip from a guy who’s been here too long: don’t sign a damn lease in November.

Adam Johnson ([email protected]) is a graduate student at the La Follette School of Public Affairs.

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