This fall marks the first semester that OSU sophomores are required to live on campus, a long-anticipated change in policy that necessitated a major building program by the university. Eleven new buildings in the North Residential District south of Lane Avenue are now bustling with activity thanks to the extra 3,000-plus students being housed on campus.
Since it was first proposed by then-president Gordon Gee in 2008, much of the discussion of the sophomore rule has focussed on the impact it will have on the surrounding neighborhoods. A market study commissioned at that time by seven of the largest landlords in the University District painted a doomsday scenario, predicting that the housing stock would deteriorate and the occupancy rate would plunge from over 99% to 80%.
Although it’s hard to pin down hard numbers on the overall vacancy rate — it is always in flux, and there are a huge number of individual property owners, both large and small, in the district — it’s clear from interviews with local residents and landlords that, while there has been an impact, nothing quite that dramatic has occurred.
One important factor that the 2008 study failed to take into account was a significant increase in overall enrollment. In 2009, there were just over 41,000 undergrads enrolled at OSU for the fall semester; in 2015 that number topped 45,000.
“The market is softer this year, but we ended up at about 97% occupied, which we’re satisfied with,” said Wayne Garland of Buckeye Real Estate, one of the larger property owners in the neighborhood. He added that his company offered discounted rent on many units in its large portfolio of two- and three-story apartment buildings, which were particularly slow to lease up.
That is definitely a change from previous years, in which most available units for the fall are typically spoken for at least six months in advance.
Peter Lohmann, whose company RL Property Management has about 15 units that it manages in the neighborhood, said that it was a challenge to find renters for some of them.
“There was an oversupply of available units,” he said. “On Craigslist in June or July this year, there were hundreds of units to choose from… that’s new and unusual, normally you’d be out of luck if you waited that long to get housing.”
Lohmann is not overly concerned for the future though. “This year is likely to be the worst ever, since there was no incoming group to fill the units,” he said, pointing out that next year about 3,000 sophomores now living in dorms will be moving off campus and looking to sign leases.
Other property owners, as well as local real estate agents, have noted that leasing has been slower for properties farther from High Street, especially the larger ones with four or more bedrooms.
“If you’re inside of Indianola (closer to campus), you really should have been filled this year, and most people probably were,” said Garland. “The more peripheral areas (farther from campus), you can maybe back-fill with people from other areas and backgrounds, but people who aren’t students generally don’t want to come live at 15th and Indianola.”
These changes in the rental market, along with the red-hot housing market in Columbus — particularly in Clintonville and the Short North, which bookend the University District to the north and south — have led to speculation about the potential for converting some of those more peripheral rental properties into owner-occupied, single family homes. Click here to read more about the market for single family homes in the University District.