Purchased a condo, where all three of my children have lived at various times, 2 for undergrad and one for grad school. All have graduated, and am renting it

out. Will most likely sell it in next couple of years.

Yes, that Jacksonville beach house actually made me more money than I paid for his education at that state university. Being on the beach probably did not help his grades though, but all's well that ends well.

We had two girls attending college at the same time. We built a new 4 bedroom zero lot line in the town where they went to school. Because it was new, there weren't many repairs. The builder turned out to be a asset and a friend. Most of the yard was taken care of by the HOA. They rented out rooms. That paid for other expenses. They graduated before the roommates so we rented out our girls' rooms and kept it until the roommates graduated. Everyone had a place to park with a garage door opener. They could walk to the grocery store, so they cooked a lot. The neighbors and the HOA security all knew that 4 girls lived there alone.

We made a profit when it sold. Would I do it again? Absolutely.

I purchased a condo with my daughter while she was in college. I rented the second bedroom to her roommate. After graduation she took over the payments and lived in it alone several years. Her company purchased it when she was relocated.

Connie Kissner: did your daughter go to the University of Dayton? Our son did, Class of 2009. One of our best decisions....a lovely place and a wonderful experience.

I have read every comment. To those children of parents who either have the foresight or the ready means to buy a home or condo in their college town to live in while they are in school, let me say you are VERY lucky! And while I am sure that the slob/partier stigma doesn't apply to all of you, you should value the home you have been given and try not to take it for granted. i.e - take care of the home while you have it. Take care in choosing your roommates who will pay the utilities on time (you are building credit) or cut the grass and keep the noise down for the neighbors.

My closest friend grew up very poor in Tucson with her two older brothers. They are all extremely intelligent. She could have graduated from High School her Junior year, but her mother was collecting food stamps and other compensation from the government and if she graduated and went off to college, her mother wouldn't get as much. She applied for and received many grants, as her brothers before her did. All the siblings received degrees in engineering. She wanted to go on to graduate school and received some grants but not enough. So she enrolled in the Army Reserves. She figured it was peace time so she could train once a month and finish her education. Then Saddam happened... she was one of the first deployed over to Iraq. She drove a Semi truck for 3 years, in very hostile territory. She is one of the most amazing people I know! She came back after three years and got her Masters Degree and while working, she is getting her doctorate.

Her brother didn't get enough money to go to school and stay in student housing. So he bought a cheap panel van (the creepy kind) and outfitted it with solar panels. he parked it on NAU Campus during the day to charge the and then parked illegally in the forest in different locations every night and used the charged solar batteries to power his hot plate and laptop. He lived in that van for 5 years! He took showers in the dorms when friends let him in. He finished his Doctorate in record time.

So to those kids whose parents can and will pay for a place for you to live, appreciate it! Live up to the gift you have been given.

Emily H
Thanks for posting this question. People's comments have given me a lot to consider, with a senior graduating in a few days. God bless you.

We purchased a two-bedroom condo in our son's sophomore year after suffering the low quality and high price of apartment rentals. He enjoyed it for four years (he changed majors several times!) and we used the spare bedroom on football game days. After he graduated, we sold the furniture as a lot to a guy who agreed to move it, then sold the condo unit at a nice profit. The unit was only on the market for 6 days, we had multiple offers and we sold above asking price! A big win all around.

There is such a thing as protecting kids from acquiring basic life competencies. If they choose to school away from home, maybe they sense it would do them good to get some distance.

This question seems so crazy to me. But then, I went to college in Palo Alto....

Buy our place taught our elder daughter great management skills that helped her immensely in the working world.

We bought with her understanding that she would pay the same rent she was previously paying to a landlord. The bonus for taking on the responsibility was that she would have a larger and nicer room. She was responsible for paying utilities, interviewing, managing and collecting from two roommates who would share with her. She was to call trades if anything went wrong, negotiate approval for parties with neighbours. When she graduated and handed the keys to her sister, she'd grown the apartment bank account by over $5,000.

Sister number 2 wasn't mature enough to handle it. I'll leave it at that. It depends on the kid, I suppose.

We purchased a 1960 3/2 REO house near Sonoma State in 2010 when our son was a freshman. The rent from the two roomies paid the mortgage. We tried having them take care of yard maintenance, but as others have said it didn’t work out too well. We found a great gardener and handyman and it has been pretty smooth sailing. Had to replace the roof and our son and his roomies painted the house. He graduated in 2012 and we have continued renting with no problems. College kids are generally slobs, but we have been lucky with our tenants - the current group have been there 3 years and are all graduates with jobs. The house is now worth almost twice what we purchased it for. All in all, it was a good investment.

Purchased a house thirty-five years ago that had a mother-in-law apartment attached that son lived in and he was responsible for finding good tenants for the the three bedrooms and paying all bills but the mortgage. Good experience and he did a good job. He lived there for awhile after he married and then they moved to another country and I put the house with a rental agent for the next few years. I now am renovating it with the idea of living there in Florida and selling my house in Virginia. So all in all it has been a vey good investment that paid for itself and is now debt free and I have a super retirement home in a great university town! Go Gators!

Absolutely! Why pay rent when you can buy? I bought a condo in Austin, Texas for my daughter to live in while she attended university. She moved out after she graduated and I’ve been renting it ever since. The rent pays the mortgage and covers the costs. The other benefits include tax deductions that allow me to visit home (Austin) twice per year. I’d be foolish not to own.

(slightly tongue in cheek) Depriving your college adult student the joy of their first apartment with the crazy upstairs neighbor, a futon that never felt right, and living on a street known for it's colorful nightlife. they'll never know what it's like to chase rent, move every year and figure out who to live with.

I'm pretty sure my parents didn't know 3/4 of the addresses or moves I made while at uni. I lived in 5 places in 4 years. I can't look at a Uhaul without fond memories of heat exhaustion; I always seemed to move in the middle of summer, in AZ.

Turns out all that moving 'practice' came in handy later on. I've moved 8 times since graduating 18 yrs ago.

We bought a condo for our son to live in while he attends college. The monthly cost is just little more than half of what it would have us cost to rent a similar unit and similarly comparative to living in campus housing. The math works well for us!

As a "townie" in a state university town I see parents buy and neglect properties all the time. Thier kids get drunk from Thursday to Sunday without regard for the neighbors. These precious beasts feel entitled to park in our driveway at midnight and are bitter at 8am when we ring the doorbell and tell them to remove the vehicle. Parents don't seem to worry that their red plastic encrusted lawns eventually fill with weeds that seed our backyard lawn every autumn. They've taken our porch furniture several times - We stroll through the neighborhood and locate our furniture next to firepits they concoct, and trek it back home. We must be the only people with our address and phone number written in Sharpie under the furniture seats. When the parents come for game day football, we mention these things to them when they come and knock on the door and asked if they could park in our driveway for a few hours so they can walk over to the stadium -- and they swear to god it would never have been their Johnny. A few times I've stopped your drunk daughter on her way up the stairs and asked her if she truly wanted that frat boy "helping her" home. Please stop your kid from obtaining pets - all of our now beloved pets arrived on our porch in late June, abandoned and hungry. Next time you visit for Mom's Weekend, drop by my house and leave your phone number so I can call you after I call the ambulance next time your drunk college student thinks it a good idea to climb a 100-year-old maple tree to install holiday lights only to break two legs. I know, it's never ever your child, maybe those other students, but not your's. Yes, in fact, I too will buy property in my children's college towns if it makes sense, but I will monitor that the property and neighbors are being respected.

wow! I feel for you! Fortunately I've not experienced that, but I'm so sorry you've had to deal with all that. But then again, I'm not that close to the campus that anyone would want to walk to the game.

what a story chloeshoes! I live in a college town myself, but most students live on campus. You have some interesting and valuable perspective on young adults these days. It's appalling as can be, mind you. As for parents denying what their children are capable of- that starts at a very young age.

I guess I'm the poorest person on this forum. Geeze, we could barely afford the tuition/room&board, let alone buying another property! And I hate to think how my son and his friends would have "maintained" it. The house he and 5 fellow water polo team members rented for two years, was condemned right after graduation. I'm sure he wasn't the worst of the boys, but I'm also sure he spilled a lot of beer and also did some damage. Needless to say, our security deposit was not returned and rightly so. In our daughter's college town, the rents were awful enough after the dorm and the sorority house - could not have possibly afford to buy. And again, between school, ROTC, a sport, a sorority and a boyfriend, when on earth would she have had time to maintain it.

It made me sick when I heard that a friend's granddaughter chose to stay here and go to a 4th rate local university instead of going to one of the top universities in the south. Reason why? Her mother would buy her a condo here and it was too expensive in the other city where the university was. Great reason to choose a college...

Apparently, it is now a trend for parents to buy a house/condo in the town where their child attends boarding school. The parents "need to be close by" and they want their precious darling to be able to use it on weekends as the boarding school as "so many rules". So why are they paying nearly $60,000 to send their precious snowflake to boarding school? Just send them to a local private day school and let them live at home! I liked all those "rules" when my son was in boarding school (30th reunion was this past weekend so it was a long time ago!). I knew he would never be in a car and not be partying somewhere off campus with people I did not know. Was there drugs and booze on campus? I'm sure there was - especially the booze. But at least he didn't get in a car.

We bought a mobilehome in a lovely small community adjacent to a city park and 20 min drive to college. It was affordable, cute and easy upkeep for our daughter while she studied. We then sold afterward. It was perfect.

@Poyn sounds like a really neat option. I think the key for most college students is easy upkeep. And having lived in a mobile home they'll have an appreciation for other types of housing when they decide to invest.

I live in an ocean-side town, where the state college is in a different town several miles away. Vacation rentals are used as student rentals for the academic year because the university doesn't provide enough campus housing. This past academic year, my small neighborhood of 36 homes experienced: Three (3) orange (unruly gathering/nuisance) stickers on residences within 20 paces of each other, arrests for DUI, disorderly conduct, and two charges of vandalism with damage over $1000, noise complaints, disturbances at 2am with gatherings of 50-165 party-goers, parking congestion, public urination, and cans, bottles, glass and trash littering the roads. The properties are not maintained. The owners come back, scrub the sticker off the house, repair the interior, and continue the slow but steady deterioration of our neighborhoods.

We purchased a condo in Seattle for our 2 daughters that attended UW. The price of rent for 2 kids in Seattle was more than our monthly loan payments. We purchased it right before Amazon settled in Seattle. Since then, the price of the realestate almost doubled. They pay a rent, now that they have jobs, but with a family discount. As their life is getting busier than ours, we visit them often and enjoy Seattle. One day when they move on, we might sell it, or rent it. Or just keep it as our City-retreat!

We bought a house for my daughter in Huntsville, AL. Mortgage and insurance was cheaper than most rents. First two years the roommates paid everything, so she lived rent free. Last year she liked living by herself. She collected rent, paid property taxes, arranged for lawn mowing, repairs, etc. She had power of attorney, arranged the sale when she finally moved. Great learning and living experience. Housing market tanked at that time, so it wasn't great financially.

No kids, never had any and never will but I enjoyed reading the comments very much. In general it sounds to me that most parents who bought houses for their college bound kids did well. This was very interesting and an entertaining read!

At our son's request and urging, we bought a 2-unit rental property - our son lived in one unit and we rented the other. We never moved or stayed there when we visited. But we felt it was a wise financial decision - he didn't have to pay for housing and we made a profit on the rent. We also sold it for a $40,000 gain, so all-in-all a good investment!

I think this type of investment especially makes sense if you will have multiple children attending the same university over a span of years.

The neighborhood I grew up in was once filled with families. As time went on the houses were bought by parents of college students which turned a nice neighborhood into a frat neighborhood. But my parents endured it until their passing. I now own that home and will sell because the last thing I want to be is a landlord to college students. So to you parents who are contemplating purchasing a home for your college kids, please teach them to respect their new neighbors and neighborhood.

Students living off-campus miss a major part of the college experience. Our daughter did not move off-campus until her senior year, as at that time there was no campus housing for seniors. Fortunately, now there is guaranteed housing for all 4 years.

Our son moved off campus for his last two years, mainly because his sport had twice daily practices, one of which was in the evening. All the boys took an afternoon nap! They also needed quiet the night before travel to tournaments - they could not get this in the dorm or the fraternity house. Sometimes those first two years, the coach had them sleep on her LR floor!

I just asked my DGS1 who will start college in the fall which he would prefer if given the choice (he does NOT have the choice!). He said he'd much prefer living in the dorm to be with friends, and not have to worry about anything but cleaning his own room - halls and bathrooms are cleaned daily by the university.

It's one thing to live at home and go to a local university to save money. But living off campus? Sorry - I wouldn't have done that if I could have afforded to do so. And those who wrote about the deterioration of their neighborhoods are right - college students are notoriously poor neighbors.

This has been a fascinating thread for me as well. I live in a college town, but our local school houses all the undergrads and the majority of the grad students as well. I cannot imagine buying my children a condo or house for going to university. But then again, my husband and I are not real estate investors. We own houses for our own use. We don't even rent out our vacation home.

DS1 did not appreciate communal bathrooms in the dorms this year (his first year.) He got used to it. DS2 starts in the fall.

I will say, when looking over the meal plan dollars, that is a pretty huge waste, even. The food is not particularly good- and I don't mean by gourmet standards- it's just pretty obvious they school has a captive audience for meals- so no huge effort goes into that and it's a shame.

ctriggs51 has a point. But in our case we improved the house and were pretty good neighbors. I had someone stop me while I was visiting and tell me how much they liked having my daughter in the neighborhood.

My daughter went to UCSD in the beach town of LaJolla, CA. Would have loved to own a home in the neighborhood , just too pricey. My son is off to Cal Poly Pomona, we really have not considered purchasing there, again So Cal real estate is quite expensive and we do not want our dollars tied up in housing at that location. Although property near Cal Poly would be much less than UCSD. My daughter lived in an on campus apartment, it was a great experience for her. Off-campus housing was not much less and though she was in a sorority, there is no greek housing for this campus.

Are you kidding me? You expect parents to give you this intimate information about CHILD, FINANCES and THEM?

Well I guess some have. Happy trolling and data hacking, Houzz.

Bought a condo for our DD in Cleveland where she attended Grad School for 3 yrs. great for her while she lived there (peace of mind for us) and we made a little money when we sold it (easily) after she graduated. good decision.

I would consider it a crazy question, has not my DS been admitted to Georgia Tech, one of the best places for his chosen major-and for a short time we(I say "we" because he soon surprized us with a very different decision lol), or more accurately, my DH, was thinking aloud about buying a condo there. Why? Because that-the proof of residency-and they're very strict with it there, I checked- would make him an in-state student, cutting the tuition from almost 50 K a year to under 15 or whatever it is this year there.

The prices there are much cheaper than here(Cali)..we'd be able to buy a centrally located condo, in a good building, right next to the school -and we'd still save money. And hopefully he'd also have somebody who'd be his roomate, paying some rent.

I looked at my husband like he fell of a tree when he told me that, especially knowing how savvy he is, and how he is very independent and fostering same independency in kids, etc.

But no, that was purely financial reasoning behind it. Nothing more, nothing less.

Well as I wrote already-he's not going there, so it stayed a theoretical discussion.

But it helped me to realize why some parents probably do it at all.

My DD lived off-campus these past two years, but so close you can say was still on-campus..it's a fraternity row, but her place was this co-op type of dorms. Why?Because it's UCLA..the housing on-campus is 12K if you're lucky..her place was 6K, and for the past year she was a room advisor so that got her one third of rent off too.

BTW I'm really appalled on the amount of money one is supposed to pay here for everything..every time you apply for something, you pay, even though you already started paying tuition etc..basically, click of a mouse-you pay..needing to see a counselor to put schedule together-no, you can't just schedule an appoitment, instead they want you to go to some fancy orientation, and stay there for three(??) days, and pay several hundred dollars, or else you won't get this consultation in-person..the system here is inflated like some sort of balloon. It irritates me to no end. They spend tons of money on stuff that nobody needs, really, free pens and totes with emblems, and all sorts of ads , and endless booklets, and probably keeping huge amount of people to even tend to all that. All that grandiosity, put into..what exactly? I find it all very wasteful. On many levels. Sorry for the rant.

In my opinion, this question and the responses perfectly illustrate the great divide in this country between the small privileged group who enjoy nearly everything and the majority who struggle from one payday to the next. The very act of asking the question assumes a level of privilege that most people in this country cannot imagine.

This is a media company of sorts, therefor it has a certain target demographic. There is nothing incongruous about that.

Don't do it. I knew a group of parents who bought a home for their collegiate sons. What a disaster. It became the party house and was trashed. One of the sons was dealing drugs. They were lucky the house was not confiscated by the authorities.

Our older son went to college in our town. He lived at home for the first year, then he and some friends started looking at houses to rent. We decided to buy a fixer-upper for them. We fixed it up and they moved in, with the others paying a reasonable rent. After a few months our son moved back home, and the home remained rented for the next 14 years. One roommate would move out, another would move in, and we painted and made minor repairs along the way. After a couple of bad renters (college age but not students), we decided to rent to adults past college age, and we had drama with one group, followed by a lovely gentleman who turned out to be a high functioning alcoholic, unknown to us until he went to jail for his fifth DUI! (Our background checks didn't cover everything.) He left behind quite a mess, including personal belongings and a really bad paint job. That was when we thought about selling. Instead, we added on, refinished and replaced flooring, repaired, replaced and improved things, and rented to a lovely family. The house is well located in a nice neighborhood, and it has worked out well for us. It should be noted that I like the design side of things, and my husband likes the construction side, so we have only had to hire plumbers and electricians.

Our younger son went to college in a town four hours from home. It wasn't realistic for us to try to buy, fix, and maintain a property from that distance, and it didn't make sense to purchase a brand-new property farther from campus, which would limit its appeal to students, and on which we would likely lose money when it was time to sell. Otherwise, we would have repeated the process for him. As it was, after a year in the dorms, he and friends rented houses at inflated prices from landlords/property management firms who failed to maintain the properties. They only rented to students, students don't usually complain, and if they did, little to nothing was done, thus providing the incentive for parents to purchase a property in a college town.

We bought a two bedroom condo within walking distance to our son’s college (Flagler College in St. Augustine FL), for his convenience and ours as parents. We live in Europe 6000 miles away and hotels/airbnb in the area are expensive so staying in his extra room during visits has been helpful. Now our second son will take the other room to attend college in the area which will (hopefully) be great for both of them. I guess they will take turns on the sofa when we come to visit! We love the area so will keep the condo once they graduate. We’ll either rent it out or use it as our retirement nest. It’s been a great investment.

Bought a condo in Ocean Beach, Ca. when our son was at the Univ. of San Diego. We still own it, 6 years after his graduation, and rent it out. Even though we live on the East Coast it works with a good property manager. Our investment has only increased in value, a nice little nest egg. On the plus side for our son it was better than living in the dorms. He was able to surf every morning before school rather than waking up to a constant party.

My parents helped my sister buy a house in Gainesville. Rent on an apartment was equivalent to purchasing a house.

She lived there for 3 years, and now they rent the home to graduate students. My sister graduated 10 years ago.

It really depends on the kid whether you will do well buying a house if you are also renting it out to roommates. It does add a lot of stress to your child to maintain a house and collect rent and pay utilities and put up with questionable roomies. We were not in a position financially to buy a house when our youngest went to college. Fortunately he received lots of scholarships and his college is one of a few in the nation where they give you all your scholarship money the first day of Validation so money was sitting in his account when he got thrown out of the dorms for having a hot plate. He bought a fixer upper house a block from campus so can easily still rent it out after he graduated a few years ago. We had traveled there many weekends (3 hours) to help him fix it up and everything is new. He is now doing his PhD in a crime-ridden city and chose to stay in the dorms on campus (at 25 yrs old) and take advantage of the 24/7 unlimited meal plan so he could focus on school and be safe. The profit from his rental pays for it all.

What we learned:

1. Never buy a rental more than 15 minutes from your front door! (future)
2. Have an excellent iron-clad rental agreement, condition of rental checklist, and an attachment to agreement of house rules (lawn maintenance, who pays plumber etc)
3. Fix up place to attract best renters
4. Rent to grad students or upper-classmen only and check references
5. Have renters pay utilities, bug control and plumber (we have plumber come day of move-in to rooter-rooter pipes so they have a clean slate)
6. Have good reliable maintenance people on call
7. Use VENMO, PAYPAL, Google Wallet or like for rental payments
8. Thank renters immediately for prompt payment and keep communication open. We ask often if there are any maintenance issues but still find that they don't tell us until we come to visit and we don't have the proper tools.
9. Get first and last month's rent plus a security deposit
10. NO pets. NONE, NONE, NONE

How about changing up the questions, Houzz??

So here’s an update from my post of June 27, if you care to read. My brother and I have followed through on our plans to sell our parents home in the college town in which we grew up (it was a very emotional decision - It was the home my brother returned to after completing his tour of duty in Viet Nam). The lady next door confronted our realtor twice about whether college students would be occupying the house. Funny, she didn’t give a care when she rented to college students for years, causing many sleepless nights for our parents. But they paid her mortgage and now that she has retired there, she doesn’t want college students for neighbors. I would really like to see another family in this home, but I can’t help but feel a sense of poetic justice if parents of college students purchase it instead.

I live in a college town. It has only been a nightmare to have parents buy houses for their kids when the parents live far away. These kids know nothing about maintaining a property. They don't have to be accountable to anyone. And, they're kids. They will have parties, they will get pets. They will frequently be irresponsible about both. Having lived with this for 35 years, I will say this: if you can afford to purchase a house for your kid to live in while attending college, you can afford to stay in a hotel to visit them. Have them stay in a dorm where there is some accountability.

Yes. We had bought a home in Punta Mita with the help of viacapitalepv(dot)com.

I have a deep thought of making this. Once my sons have chosen their schools next year, this is on my listing of things to research.

Yes, this was back in 2004, we bought a HUD foreclosure - three bedroom home. We used an interest only home equity line. We fixed it up being most HUD foreclosures are missing light fixtures, door knobs, water heater. Our son and two of his best friends, painted and decorated the house, they enjoyed living there until graduation. All three were on scholarship, we charged the other two boys 1/3 of what the dorms would be. We sold after 4 years with a nice profit. Having a house also allowed our son to have his dog at home with him.

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