For many UNH students, the competitive sport that is picking off-campus housing can be quite stressful. It can be even more stressful and burdensome when the search for affordable housing is constrained to only a couple websites filtering all the available options. When trying to find apartments within reasonable proximity to the campus, the lack of supplemental resources can make the process extremely difficult for students.
“Sometimes they just don’t call you back,” sophomore Hannah Hughes said. “Or the websites are confusing and reasonable pricing is hard to find… impossible to find. All the housing is between two frustrating websites.”
Junior Connor Courtwright had a similar viewpoint on the matter. “It really is a problem, like I don’t know why but it’s just pretty difficult to find reasonably priced housing that is available, you know, we’re all broke college students just looking for houses,” he said.
With many students sharing the dissatisfaction with the available opportunities for housing, it would seem that a change is due. Over the summer, Places4Students, a national off-campus housing resource, partnered with UNH. The organization also provides housing for over 140 colleges and universities throughout North America and has a user-friendly web interface with representatives who are timely in their response to inquiries.
“Our main goal is to be North America’s leading off-campus housing listing resource by providing academic institutions, faculty and students with a proven service and web solutions, a variety of housing options, exceptional customer support and technology that is dynamic and adaptable to the ever-changing housing market,” Places4Students General Manager Laurie Snure said.
The website is entirely free without registration fees, with the opportunity for students to post sublet ads and roommate profiles. The website gives UNH another valuable housing resource and also the ability for students to get a broader picture of Durham’s housing market.
“Yeah off-campus housing can be a real problem,” junior Christine Spaulding said. “I’m really glad there is another resource because I was not looking forward to having to navigate those [UNH-Apartments] again.”