Leasing policy debatable at The Charles, Blackstone

The Charles and Blackstone apartments are always hot commodities, but a new leasing policy, while promoting fairness, could make it harder than ever to secure a place.

The new business manager, Diane Isennock, decided to throw wait lists to the wind, and with a denial of a referral policy, students can't help but wonder, who is getting these apartments?

In years past, a wait list policy would send students into the leasing office for both buildings, which are owned by the same leasing agency, as early as September.

By filling out an application early and trying to beat the crowd, students assumed that, come March, they would have a lease to sign.

"Those kids just stopped looking [for other apartments]," Isennock said.

Although a high position on the wait list should have secured them an opening, placement is never a guarantee and students have argued that the wait list wasn't really followed.

Isennock found that, as the months continued, the number of prospective leasers trickling in didn't decrease. In March and April, people came in groves, she said, and expected to get apartments.

She also said that, at the end of the summer, some students came back a few weeks early with their parents and stayed at hotels while trying to find places to live. In the end, the leasing agency took a survey on their policy.

"People would rather be on a walk-in basis," she said. "It's fair that way."

According to their new policy, when an apartment is posted for rent, it's available to the next person to show interest, fill out an application, and pass the credit check.

This means that, although one student might visit the leasing office and check what's available every month starting in September, another student could walk in for the first time in March and, by luck, get the apartment the first person has been waiting for.

Showing interest early on in the academic year and being persistent are no longer tickets into the system that now seems more based on chance.

Although Isennock claims that it's fair, some of her tenants disagree.

"The people who come in early and are on the ball should get what they want," said Katie Chunka, a junior who rents an efficiency in The Charles.

Chunka applied at the beginning of her sophomore year, when the wait list was still the policy.

"Every month I came to verify that my name was on the list," she said.

For Chunka, persistence paid off. Even with the change in policy, she still insists that the only way to get an apartment in The Charles and Blackstone is to visit the leasing office and check in as much as possible.

According to Isennock, the turnaround pattern on both buildings is not a normal one. Because the buildings house mostly students, 80 percent of the units become available for rent in May through August.

This past summer, 87 apartments were put on the vacancy board and leased. Some placements were made by walk-ins, but a significant number of leasers for both buildings are friends and/or acquaintances with others currently living there.

"It is word of mouth," Isennock said. "In this building, they all know each other."

Isennock said that the leasing company does not follow a referral policy -- those who are interested in taking over an apartment from a friend have to go through the process just like anyone else.

But if a tenant is moving out of an apartment and has a friend in mind, the process of handing it over to that person is almost guaranteed to be successful.

While the apartment is technically placed on the vacancy board and open to anyone who's interested, the tenants usually bring their friend with them when they tell Isennock they're planning on leaving.

As soon as the apartment is placed on the vacancy board -- within minutes -- the friend is filling out the application, getting her parents to co-sign, and signing a lease before anyone else knows it was put on the market.

Senior Kate Johnson and her friend moved into the three-bedroom apartment in The Charles with an Alpha Phi sister who was already living there. After her roommates moved out, it was just a matter of paperwork for Johnson to move in.

"We didn't have to worry about searching early," she said. "We essentially just fell into the spot."

Johnson is aware that, both with the old policy and the new policy, knowing someone who already lives in the apartments makes it easier to find a spot. But it's not so black and white.

"I wouldn't call it a referral policy," she said. "It just sort of happens that way."

Isennock recommends that students who are interested in living in The Charles and Blackstone apartments check in with the leasing office in February and March.

In order to speed up the process, she hopes to have a complete list of apartments available for move-in between May and September by the end of April.

In addition, the management for the buildings is working to make the apartments available to all students on an equal level, but legacies of passing down apartments and the luck of knowing when to check in for apartments make the process just as difficult as before.

"It's the best of two evils," Johnson said. "There's no fair way to do it."