Written by: Mike Senecal
Edited by: Lillian Guevara-Castro
Reviewed by: Adam West
In a Nutshell: One of the biggest challenges when leaving home for college may be securing off-campus housing that puts you where you want to be, doing the things you want to do. Active and free since 2003, Places4Students helps renters in more than 225 North American campus towns find student-friendly accommodations, match roommates, and access educational materials. Millions of students from around the world (and hundreds of thousands of landlords) trust Places4Students to connect them to communities of success.
College is an investment, and it pays to get your ducks in a row before packing for school. Getting organized may mean many different things to the millions of students on North American college campuses in 2024. But one of the ducks that quacks the most is undoubtedly off-campus housing.
That’s because your place of residence can significantly impact your college career. The right home base can help connect you socially to your campus community and to your municipality. But a suitable living space can also foster a focused mindset and promote high achievement.
Then there’s the money side. You may be one of those rare students with excellent credit and a high credit score in the market for the latest luxury high-rise. On the other end of the spectrum, you may be venturing to a U.S. or Canadian institution from abroad with no credit history and little more than your name and academic record.
Or, you may be a typical undergraduate just trying to cut through the clutter and find a safe and affordable place to live while at school — maybe with a roommate you’ve never met.
True to its name, Places4Students has a place for you no matter your credit standing. In a market packed with competitors shouting at everyone, it focuses on helping thousands of North American college students find a viable place to live.
Braedon Vanecko, Account Executive, said the site grew organically after his father, Darren Vanecko, founded it with some buddies at the University of Windsor in Ontario in 2003. It now partners with more than 225 U.S. and Canadian higher education institutions, with yearly page views topping 15 million and on a continuous upward trend. Vanecko said it’s because the site is more than a set of listings.
“Resources like sample leases and checklists, live customer support, and educational blog posts make us a comprehensive platform for students and landlords,” Vanecko said. “It’s just an easy service for everyone to use.”
Matching Roommates and Listings in Campus Towns
Off-campus housing continues to be the top choice of the majority of students. But as this article (behind a paywall) attests, freewheeling off-campus student neighborhoods can have uneasy relationships with their surrounding communities and make life difficult for residents.
Bohemian life in college may sound romantic to parents and others whose academic years are long behind them. But students spending tens of thousands and expecting a return may want to hedge their bets by finding a quiet place to call home.
On the other hand, maybe not. Places4Students provides students with an easy-access website where they can contact landlords and find safe and affordable housing that matches their needs, whatever they may be.
“Students can search by price and preferences and use smart search and quick search,” Vanecko said. “And our map view not only lets you locate your potential residence relative to campus and local businesses, but it also provides directions and mass transit stops to make it a seamless experience to get from point A to point B.”
One of the site’s strong suits is that its partnerships with North American colleges and universities are like a seal of approval from the schools to their students.
Because the institutions can provide insights into student needs and preferences, Places4Students — and the landlords who advertise their listings on the platform — can make their offerings more relevant, leading to a higher likelihood of a successful match.
As students coalesce around the platform in a particular locale, landlords follow until all landlords and potential student residents in the community who want to communicate with each other about housing are together.
Places4Students works within laws and regulations set by municipalities, institutions, and other jurisdictions. All users receive the same seamless experience, although the details of using the site may differ because some locales require account registration and others don’t.
“Some institutions like to be very heavily involved in off-campus housing, while others like us to oversee everything and report to them as they see fit,” Vanecko said.
Flexibility to Meet Various Landlord Needs
On the landlord side, let’s start with a word of appreciation for anyone who provides rental housing to a predominantly student community. Landlords advertising listings on Places4Students know they’re getting in front of an audience tuned in to hear what they have to say.
In return, landlords receive access to a user-friendly management platform that allows them to manage multiple properties online over years of students coming and going, with referrals coming directly from many of the schools partnering with the site.
Listings allow extensive descriptions of each property, with multiple color photos. Floor plans give students the lay of the land, while convenient icons let them check for free Wi-Fi and other amenities and perks.
Landlord information on Places4Students is previewed for safety and security and remains accessible as property owners introduce new assets to the platform. Owners can use analytics to parse data into reports to experiment with presentations while tracking student views.
Live customer support during business hours adds immediacy to a team dedicated to providing landlords with the resources they need to succeed. A detailed FAQ provides a step-by-step site guide and comprehensive answers to questions about the rental industry and how to use the platform.
Places4Students can guide new landlords/advertisers through the basics of creating a rental listing and crafting a banner ad. Resources include a lease agreement, rent receipt, and rental application templates and forms for maintenance requests and move-in/move-out inspections. All the while, Places4Students places the utmost emphasis on the integrity of the site.
“We prescreen every listing before it goes live for proper and professional language, with nothing discriminatory and obviously nothing inappropriate,” Vanecko said. “We’re looking at the photos, we’re checking the maps.”
Some markets require the team to consult institutional data or contact a school or city directly to obtain approval to put a landlord on the service. The level of stringency varies by market, but Places4Students is on the record as a responsible data user with respect for privacy and security.
“We’re constantly on the lookout for scams and fraud and people we’ve blocked from the service,” Vanacko said. “Our in-house team is prescreening the listings, but they’re also answering the phones and emails, which is something you don’t see with a lot of companies anymore.”
An Educational Partner Connecting a Global Community
Places4Students can also play an important community role on its own. As the COVID-19 pandemic gathered steam in 2020-21, it started the Spare Room Campaign to encourage homeowners to consider renting spare rooms to students.
“We reached out through our landlord databases to find fits,” Vanecko said. “Sometimes students pay lower room rental prices or receive free food in return for doing work around the house.”
Students also use the site to search for roommates. Roommate profiles include links to social media profiles to help prospective roommates match habits and interests — only this time, the stakes include a potential educational outcome.
“In this day and age, you can certainly learn a lot about a person through their social media,” Vanecko said. “We make it easy but secure for you to contact someone if what they’ve posted speaks to you.”
It’s just one example of how Places4Students sets inclusivity at the top of its priority list. We said above that Places4Students partners with more than 225 North American college campuses and hundreds of thousands of landlords. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worldwide because it connects a global educational community.
To that end, Places4Students provides copious educational resources for students as it does business development resources for landlords. In addition to a comprehensive FAQ of their own, students can access safety and security tips, rental etiquette advice, and even fire safety recommendations.
In fact, it’s all a bit much for the current tech stake at Places4Students. As we concluded our conversation, Vanecko said he looked forward to a website revision scheduled for later in 2024. The new website promises easier integrations with rental management software for landlords and a more modern, integrated experience for students.
“The website will have a new look and feel, still very user-friendly but with better technology,” Vanacko said. “We’re excited for that to drop, and we can’t wait for everyone to see it.”
