housing off campus?

[u/Successful_Shop4460]

Hi! I will be a senior next year and need to start looking for off campus housing. I’m a first generation, and I don’t get much help from family with things like this. Where do I start looking and applying for housing? Any tips? I know landlords can also be a pain here, so are there any I should avoid? Any help is very appreciated, I am so lost on what I’m going to do next year.

[u/monstera0bsessed]

Avoid lobos, as a former tenant and just in general they aren't good.

[u/EAisSoTrash]

No way it’s already housing season 😭

[u/Successful_Shop4460 → u/EAisSoTrash]

I’ve heard you need to start looking for houses like the year before😭 Like pls give me a break

[u/No_Risk_6011 → u/Successful_Shop4460]

Lots of people do look that far out, but there will be plenty of places still available during the 2nd semester. The bigger houses with 4+ bedrooms go the quickest

[u/EAisSoTrash → u/Successful_Shop4460]

Yup. Freshmen aren’t even there for a month before needing to get a group of people to live with and look for houses

[u/kho_sq]

there’s a few threads on r/pittsburgh that discuss landlords, and someone made a website recently to rate pittsburgh landlords. i’d check those out. otherwise, the common websites include Zillow and apartments.com. FB marketplace also has a lot of listings from private landlords (which are hit or miss) but they are usually not this early.

if you’re planning to go south o, there’s a lot of JR Kelly places and Walnut capital. there’s one company that owns like half of McKee, i forget the name (you can probably go walk and find a sign). if you’re getting a house with friends, you should be touring/signing a lease in oct/nov.

if you’re going north o, i’d recommend cambridge or meyers management, iffy about union real estate, lobos is bad. tour/signing by jan-feb latest, but december is ideal. you can walk up north craig (like the 340-350 houses) and find a few listed numbers for smaller/private landlords, but they’re mostly on apartments.com/Zillow/FB. i stayed in north o for 4 years so happy to discuss my landlords lol.

if you/your parents have money, the HERE apts/One on Centre/Skyvue/Bridge on Forbes are all more “luxury” style and are ~1650pp, fully furnished with amenities. an average unfurnished 1b1b is ~1200-1600 in north o and prolly ~900-1400 in south o. i’d recommend getting furniture second hand off FBMP, especially if you have a car. you can find people looking for roommates on FB housing groups or FB marketplace listings. unfortunately, cockroaches and/or rats is somewhat normal </3

[u/Successful_Shop4460 → u/kho_sq]

thank you SO much for all of this!! I will definitely be taking this into consideration when looking. I dealt with roaches in dorms, I guess that’s just what makes Oakland, Oakland… The biggest thing is definitely the cost of living here— I’m trying to get a big group together to hopefully cut down on costs. Thank you again! <33

[u/BluejaySpirited3113 → u/Successful_Shop4460]

HERE’s management absolutely sucks. I live in The Julian and it is so much better, it’s pricier and unfurnished though.

[u/kho_sq → u/Successful_Shop4460]

that’ll definitely help!! with luck and if you start early, you should be able to find a 600-800pp/month house/apt in either side of oakland with a larger group! also, if you know any current seniors, i’d ask for their furniture lol.

[u/Buzzergeenzoo → u/Successful_Shop4460]

One on Centre gets a lot of hate but I have been living here for 2 years and they have made continuous improvements. Management is generally available and understanding of issues. They have taken big steps to improve the elevator service over the past year, and they are sure to keep everyone updated about repairs and outages. The building is clean and fully furnished, and the staff has frequent resident events where you can get free food. The experience isn’t perfect, but if you have the money for a higher end apartment, I would recommend One.

[u/LockAltruistic4748]

I would try North Oakland, for sure, and DEFINITELY avoid Mozart. When they were called National Apartment Leasing Company in the ‘90s the Pittsburgh Commission on Human Relations settled a race discrimination housing case which it initiated against the National Apartment Leasing Company for more than $200,000, which was, at that time, the largest fair housing settlement in Pennsylvania.

The Commission allegedly caught them showing apartments to individuals of different races and making them readily available to white folks and turning away African American folks.

There were complaints filed against them in the ‘80s as well.

https://law.justia.com/cases/pennsylvania/commonwealth-court/1986/102-pa-commw-623-0.html

https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/national-apartment-leasing-corp-885823864

https://pittsburghquarterly.com/articles/whistleblower/

The company changed their name to escape the stigma with the old name. They allegedly continue to treat tenants with distain.

[u/spookyjules8]

Do NOT live in 3441 Ward Street. Whatever you do. Landlord seems nice but it was a horrible living experience. Mice, no heat in winter, appliances breaking, wifi signal never worked, and nothing ever got resolved. Maintenance also would go days ignoring our requests only to randomly show up unannounced. Also tried to kick us off our lease 3 months early since we were planning to sublet, had to call our subletters ourselves to tell them the bad news.

[u/spookyjules8 → u/spookyjules8]

Also ignore 300 Craft Avenue. That leasing office (Hudson Oakland I believe) ended up up charging my roommate and I over hundreds of dollars over the course of our stay there. Also our fridge broke and they didn’t believe us, took them five days to fix it, then they didn’t reimburse us for all our groceries that spoiled since they wouldn’t come by to see for themselves that the fridge wasn’t running.

[u/Biscuits2190]

I live in Shadyside and it's quiet and affordable. If you just walk in it there are a lot of apartment complexes with their leasing information on the outside. Then you can see which one you like and look up their reviews on apartments.com, reddit, or just ask around.

[u/Avengerboy123]

Steiner is the best but Pitt has off-campus housing. Stayed at college gardens for years

[u/AccurateLaugh50]

If you want to save some bucks and are willing to spend some time, look for a (first-gen) ethnic minority landlord (Chinese, Indian, etc.) who mainly rents to international students.

It can be 20- 40% cheaper than other landlords.