A glimpse into off-campus living
By the end of September, most students have already signed their leases for the following year.
Reporting by
Web design by
Media by
As October arrives, many Brown students hoping to live off campus
next year have already signed leases around College Hill.
Many of these units are owned by the same individuals, commonly
nicknamed by students as the “College Hill Landlords.” The Herald
spoke to three of these landlords to learn more about the off-campus
housing landscape.
The leasing process often begins more than a year in advance of the
leases’ start dates, landlords say. According to David Baskin, a
landlord on College Hill, students looking for off-campus housing
for the 2026-27 school year started signing leases as early as this
May.
Baskin owns three buildings near Brown’s campus: 21 Euclid Ave., 165
Lloyd St. and 159 Lloyd St. Across these three properties, he rents
to more than a hundred Brown students.
Bethany Hughes ’10 has 40 students living in her five properties,
located at 42 John St., 171 Williams St., 173 Williams St., 175
Williams St. and 208 Williams St. Students began reaching out months
in advance to inquire about her available properties, she wrote. She
still gets about 10 emails each week from students looking for
off-campus housing for next year.
But it’s now too late — all of her properties are full, she wrote.
Edward Kazarian, known by his residents as “Ed,” has been a landlord
for about a dozen College Hill properties over the last 40 years.
95% of his tenants are Brown students, he said in an interview with
The Herald.
Kazarian, Hughes and Baskin all told The Herald that Brown students
are drawn to off-campus housing for many reasons, including flexible
layouts, independence and living costs.
In Baskin’s experience, students have largely focused on bedroom and
bathroom layouts when choosing a property, he said.
When touring off-campus units last year, Vanessa Vu ’26 and her
roommates often came across “odd bedroom configurations, like
unequal size of rooms.” The group “toured many places that we didn’t
end up liking very much.”
Vu eventually leased a five-bed, one-bath unit on John St that her
and her roommates currently live in.
Many students also move off campus in hopes of having their own
facilities.
“I wanted to live off campus because I wanted a living space of my
own, a proper kitchen with modern appliances and an apartment I
could modify to my liking,” wrote Alp Güreş ’27, who currently lives
in a three-bed, two-bath unit in one of Baskin’s properties. He
signed his current lease last September and has already re-signed it
for next fall.
He added that he “really wanted a bidet” — something that would not
be possible in a dorm setting.
Students “want to have their own autonomy,” Baskin said.
Kazarian also shared a similar sentiment, adding that students may
not want to live “under institutional constraints” as they get
older. The surrounding neighborhoods become “an extension of
campus,” since so many friends groups end up living near each other,
he said.
“I already knew I wanted to go off campus for senior year for the
feeling of independence,” Vu wrote, “and I felt like none of the
existing on-campus options had everything I wanted.” Location
factors were also important for Vu, who wanted to live on South
Campus in closer proximity to Wickenden Street and Trader Joe’s.
“The reason why students like my properties is because (they’re)
literally on campus,” Baskin wrote, adding that his buildings are in
a “very safe location” with on-site management.
“It’s almost like a white-glove service,” he added.
When deciding whether to live on or off campus, a vast majority of
students consider the cost of both housing and food.
For the 2025-26 school year, on-campus housing and a 20 Weekly Meal
Plan cost a total of $18,514 per year, or just over $2,000 per
month. In comparison, most Brown students living in private
off-campus housing pay $800 to $1,400 per month, not including the
cost of food, according to Hughes.
“It might make economic sense” for students to live off campus,
Kazarian said. “Up until this past year, the rents have been pretty
steady.”
This year, landlords
faced
a city-wide property tax increase, but Kazarian said he “tried to
keep that impact very, very minimal” for students.
In addition to taxes imposed on landlords, the costs of gas,
electricity, water and sewage have more than doubled over the past
five years, according to Baskin, who noted that he also needs to pay
his employees on top of these expenses.
“We have kept our rent really low,” said Hughes. She charges renters
a relatively low monthly rate of $650 to $750 per bedroom “since
(she) bought in a long time ago,” starting in her junior year at
Brown.
These rates, she said, have “kept demand high.”
Baskin worries that government policies will force landlords to
continue raising their rents, he said. He mentioned a proposal put
forth before the City Council of Providence which, if passed, would
establish a $300 “Student Impact Fee” for students living off campus. Landlords would have to collect
this fee from students, and Baskin said landlords “don’t want
another tax on the students.”
“We hope the students come together with us and (speak out) against
this particular ordinance proposal,” he added.
In addition to rising taxes, the landlords of College Hill must
contend with a frequent turnover rate among renters. “Students don’t
stay more than a year or two at most,” Kazarian said.
“Usually about 10% of my students renew” because they’re juniors,
but the rest are seniors who move out after a year, Baskin said.
Güreş is among this 10%. “I will have different roommates, but I’m
so happy to say that I won’t be moving out until May 2027,” he
wrote.
Though many students only stay for one year, the landlords have
little to no issues finding new renters.
For “most of my apartments, the tenants that we get are from
referrals from existing tenants,” Kazarian said, adding that “a lot
of it’s word of mouth” as students visit their friends’ apartments
and express interest in having the spot next year. He sometimes
refers groups of students to a different landlord if he doesn’t have
a unit that will work for them.
Güreş wrote that his apartment building is “so in-demand that you
kind of need to have an ‘in’ to be able to secure the unit you
want.” His roommate, who is now a senior, lived in the unit last
year, so Güreş and his roommates were “prioritized” when signing
their current lease.
According to these landlords, the outlook of off-campus housing is
bright. Demand is “definitely not declining,” Kazarian said. “I’ve
had multiple groups interested in the same quarters,” he added,
explaining there is often competition for some units.
Demand has “increased over the past 18 years that I have been
investing,” Hughes said, and she foresees that this will continue.
“You cannot beat the college experience of living in an off-campus
house with several of your friends.”
“I am super happy with my decision to live off campus and the place
we have,” Vu said.
For her, nothing is better than “cooking together with (her)
roommates and having people over in a homey-feeling space.”
Correction: A previous version of this article misspelled Alp
Güreş's last name. The Herald regrets the error.
home