Point Park student Mike Popevec has paid between $400 and $500 a month to rent a house in South Oakland for the past three years and has no regrets.
Across the Birmingham Bridge, Eric Chesney spent his first year living off the University of Pittsburgh campus in South Side with four others in a five bedroom house. He said he has saved money and loves the freedom, but misses the close proximity to campus.
Before one group of student athletes accepted their housing in the Boulevard Apartments, they considered moving to Oakland. Junior baseball player Camden Kelly said they decided on the apartments for convenience, even if it costs more.
The winter months are when students should seek housing for the following school year.
“For the past ten years, I’ve rented 9 out of 12 of my properties to students,” said landlord Mark Tish, who has properties in both North and South Oakland. “I think they enjoy the freedoms of having a place to call their own.”
The bottom line is money. The range for South Oakland, according to Craigslist ads is $450-$500 a bedroom. For South Side it is roughly the same, but to live in a Point Park Boulevard Apartment it is $8,000 a year, not including a meal plan.
Now in his senior year, Popevec has rented houses with four of his friends in Oakland since he was a sophomore. His rent has varied with each year and moving to a different house, but he said he has never paid more than $500 for a bedroom.
“It seems like a lot because we pay rent every month, but when it’s broken down into long term payments, I’m actually saving money,” Popevec said.
Popevec paid $450 a month for a room for two years, adding up to $10,800. That’s only a little more than a Boulevard Apartment. Now he’s paying $500 for his final year, making his Oakland housing arrangement cost $16,800 total when it would have otherwise been closer to $20,000 Downtown.
According to University of Pittsburgh’s housing process, upperclassmen are not guaranteed on-campus housing, and are encouraged to look off starting their junior year.
Because Chesney pulled a low lottery number, he was able to keep him and his four friends in a nice, on-campus apartment complex called Bouquet Gardens. These apartments cost roughly $4,200 a semester and follow a very similar layout to the Boulevard Apartments at Point Park. He is now renting a house in the South Side and paying $550 per bedroom.
“I didn’t want to find a new place to live,” Chesney said. “We loved our apartment. The University made us move out. Now I am spending more money to live, but I get to experience life more on my own. It’s a win-lose kind of thing.”
Baseball practice can start as early as 7:30 a.m. and run as late as 6:00 p.m. Kelly said when it was no longer possible to find a house for his junior year, he and fellow teammates decided to spend their junior year in the Boulevard Apartments, and it makes things a little easier.
“I never have to worry about being late or missing a shuttle because I am right here,” Kelly said. “But we are planning to move off campus next year. It’s time for a change.”
With the spring semester on us, off campus houses are filling up quickly. Tish said he starts showing the first of the year, and the majority of his leases are signed by mid-March.
If students wish to move to Oakland or South Side, craigslist.org is a great place to look. However, no student should sign a lease without fully reading through all paperwork or looking up the landlord on the Pennsylvania Court Records to see if the landlord has any prior cases against them.
