In downtown Durham, University of New Hampshire students rush in and out of off-campus apartments, with others arriving by bus from apartments in nearby towns and cities. This lifestyle may be appealing, but high rent prices pose a challenge. Students often find the costs too high, leading to financial stress that affects their studies and daily lives.
Kai Parlett, a graduate student at UNH, lived in the Lodges, Cottages, and Madbury Commons– three apartment complexes associated with UNH and popular with students, last year. This year, she is rooming with fellow graduate student Ila Bartenstein in Newmarket.
“We did look into a lease in Durham; it would’ve been about $1,200 a month for me, and $1,100 a month for Kai, without utilities,” Bartenstein said.
Parlett was homeless for three weeks over the summer. She slept on couches and in her car, her most reliable spot was in Waterville, Maine, two hours away.
“Partially I didn’t want to pay rent in August; we might have been able to finesse our way into something,” Parlett said. “If we had gotten a lease that started in, like, July I would’ve been paying three rents in the month of July.” It was not at all feasible for her.
There are three major stakeholders that own the majority of the college housing market: UNH, the town, and private equity firms.
The Cottages of Durham are owned by American Campus Communities, which was recently acquired by Blackstone in 2022. The Lodges at West Edge are owned by the private equity firm Scion. Orion has property from 25–35 Main St. Campus Flats owned by Torrington Properties has 21 properties, according to Tracey Cheney, Campus Flats community manager. The Town of Durham reported in 2021 that they owned a total of 3,583 housing units. This excludes the 25 residence halls and two on-campus apartments that UNH has available to students.
According to a 2021 financial housing needs assessment, enrollment at UNH has been gradually declining, especially since 2019. UNH reports that around 6,612 students live on campus, and 4,054 students live off campus in privately owned complexes in Durham.
In Durham, landlords often rent apartments based on the number of beds rather than the unit size or number of bedrooms. This means a two-bedroom apartment could be rented to four college students at $1,000 per bed, totaling $4,000 per month.
Landlords prefer renting to students because they can pay higher rents, often funded by parents or loans. This creates competition that drives up rental rates, making it difficult for nonstudents to find housing. The market is largely geared to student households, with rentals often priced by the bed, increasing potential earnings for landlords.
Neil Niman served on the Durham Town Council from 2003 to 2012, including four years as chair. He highlights how, in 2002, most housing was owned by local landlords, but by 2003, national companies began purchasing or constructing student housing.
“The housing market was informally controlled by Durham Landlords Association,” Niman said. This association was powerful, however, the properties were of poor quality, and the rent was fairly high. Students felt they were not being charged fairly for what was given. According to Niman, this caused friction between student renters and landlords.
“What happened was national companies came in, real estate investors from Boston thought that they would come up and they would buy up all the properties,” Niman said.“They paid a lot for those properties and the only way they could recoup their investment was to charge more for rent, and so rents went up.”
According to Karen Conway, UNH professor of economics, “Markets have become much less competitive over the last 10, 20 years because we’ve had pretty lax enforcement,” she said. “It makes the market more concentrated on the supply side, moves it from our standard demand and supply model…to where they are price setters. You combine that with a situation where the demand is not very responsive to price, and they are going to make a lot of money jacking up rent.”
“I think one of the big problems with housing in general is zoning,” Conway said. “The person’s biggest asset is their home.” She believes that people do not wish to see noisy college students that make their property values go down. “They are trying to protect their assets,” she said.
Parlett will continue to commute from Newmarket but she wishes there was a feasible way to rent in Durham. Even when she was living in off-campus housing, she was burdened with faulty bus lines and often had a professor drive her home from class because her residence was inaccessible.
Parlett agreed that if rent were lower, life would be easier. “They are insanely overpriced for what they are,” she said.
