Rent College Pads, a service designed to help students find off-campus housing, has recently expanded to Clemson University.
The service compiles available housing in their system onto Google Maps and allows students to search campuses by ZIP code. Students are able to view the price, number of bedrooms, whether pets are allowed and more. It also shows when upcoming open houses are and helps students find roommates. In addition, students can access online forms that will send messages to landlords. Phone numbers are also provided so that students can call landlords immediately.
The majority of Clemson students move off campus during their sophomore, junior and senior years, according to Clemson Housing. The U.S. News & World Report estimates approximately 59 percent of Clemson students live off campus.
“It’s a service that has all the properties around Clemson in one spot for students so that they can easily reach out to landlords and set up showings and kind of compare different places against each other to decide where they want to live,” Director of Marketing Jeremy Schmidt said, “Instead of having to wait two or three months and do all this research, you can kind of get everything done pretty quick maybe in a matter of hours or days or weeks.”
Founded in 2013 by Dominic Anzalone, Rent College Pads began in Milwaukee, Wis. While working on a class project at Marquette University, Anzalone came up with the idea of a website that had multiple off-campus listings in one place. The website grew from a class project into a company. Today, the website includes listings for 50 campuses throughout the country.
RCP chose Clemson as the next school to expand to because it met the criteria they look at when selecting a school.
“We really like walking into a strong college town, and Clemson seems kind of like your classic college town where the school is a big part of the community,” Schmidt said. “There are a lot of people who are providing housing for students and it’s just a very student-friendly area.”
Schmidt said that about 1,500 students have used the site, with some using it as early as November.
“[It] seems like students get started between November and February as far as when they look for housing and it seems like it’s getting a little bit earlier every year,” Schmidt said, “We wanted to come and kind of help out this year.”
RCP Director of Market Development Shayne Chelminiak will be on campus this week to talk to students and landlords about the service.
“We don’t want to be a distant company that doesn’t really explore that area,” Schmidt said, “[We want to] get to know that area.”
To view listings in the Clemson area, click here.
