Transcript of Podcast #2: Groceries 101
In Attendance: Aimee Jiang (she/her) & Ramses Trigo Torres
Aimee: Hey, welcome everyone our next episode of the GIC podcast my name is Aimee Jiang. I am the International Student Support Officer for Graduate Division and I am excited to host the podcast today. We will be talking about off-campus housing. Things like utilities, renting expectations, how do we find off-campus housing, and so we’re excited to have you join us today. I am going to pass it off to my co-host to introduce himself.
Ramses: Hey! Thank you very much, Aimee. I’m excited to be here. Talk about something that is really important for all of us students, and probably not only students nowadays, you know, like staff member, postdocs it can help a lot. My name is Ramses Trigo. I’m a BME Ph.D. Candidate from UCI. This is, I’m about to start my 7th year, actually, and that’s something I will like to mention also that I have experience moving now several times. I have been navigating through all the UCI housing system a lot, at least for my first 4 or 5 years. So it has been a long, long path for this. But there are a lot of things, tips, that I can give to you guys to be more helpful, easier for you to get something
Aimee: Perfect. I think the first question that we want to talk about is just what is the major difference between an on campus and off campus housing.
Ramses: So this is this a great question is something that usually students when you get the first the first time to UCI. It’s a bit confusing, because in campus and off campus physically are in the same place. That’s something that most people don’t know. We we see off campus, and we we think that it’s like, Oh, it’s like 4 or 5, 10 miles away from school, but it’s not. The reality is, the off campus is actually next next street. It’s like, it’s in front of UCI. So it is something that you don’t need to be worried about. It’s walking distance, bike distance at least. But but there are major differences that actually attack your budget mainly on the rents, on utilities, on how your lease works. For example, for UCI in campus. Usually all your utilities are embedded into your rent, so it’s a flat rate rent. You pay only once, and you cover for gas, Internet, electricity, water, etc., etc., etc.. For off-campus you actually need to think about depending on the community, some communities they include the electricity they include in gas. They include Internet, some others don’t. You need to actually contact the a third party at a different provider, and make the contract yourself, so that that some some extra steps you know on this, and also, since not from UCI, the rent is higher. So that’s something that we’ll look around here, which is the most important thing, like if it’s closer, it might be more expensive while if it’s far might be cheaper, but might have less amenities, more amenities. You know there are pros and cons really for all those. And also, since it’s not from UCI you need to keep and look for scammers. So that’s a really big big thing here. Well, actually, everywhere. But we’ll we’ll keep it here.
Aimee: Yeah. And so we talked about scammers. And I think that’s important. So when we’re searching for housing, we always want to be mindful of that and make sure that we’re looking at, you know, kind of more specific places that maybe UCI is offering. Does UCI offer support to students who are looking at off-campus housing?
Ramses: Yes, actually, this something to have has been a changing through the years and at least for these past 2, 3 years. UCI has put a lot of effort on this. Before they had a simple website, just with a couple of landlords, we were like, say, like some couple of communities, but not much information. It was more about you going through Facebook looking for people offering a rent or going directly to the office of these communities. But today they have this really useful website, which is https://offcampus.housing.uci.edu/ where they actually list rentals. They list roommates. They list all the communities they are they are related to, and they offer these useful scammer safety tips for you, which I will like. I would like to read to you. There are 6 tips that they offer. Pretty simple. Some that are more common sense. Some other might be kind of tricky if your new to, if you’re new to you, to the U.S., The United States. It works differently, probably, from your your home country. If you are domestic, it will differ as well from your hometown or anything. There’s always different things. So what they say like for look out for this, scams. First of all, if you see some rent that is off or below the market, so you will see all the rents around the same price like 100 plus less than the others. But you sometimes may see something that is 300, 400, 500 less, than the usual rent, like the trend. That’s a red flag. It’s something might be fishy there, so keep a look on that. As a second option some require you to wire money before actually even looking at the at the place. So that’s a big no, no, here, I mean why, I’m paying you. If I’m not seeing the place I I have. I don’t even know you, so don’t don’t give them much, you know, trust. If there’s nothing like tangible like something you you actually saw. Third one some I mean same same thing. They they list some services, they ask for money, they they ask for a certain way to give them money. which is not like a direct transfer, or a check, or something like that. They offer like a third party like, yeah, give it to this person, then give it to this person. So that’s fishy. I think that’s the common sense, like, why do I need to triangulate all the you know, all the services. As a fourth one they usually claim that they are affiliated to UCI. So right now, with this website is really easy to knock that off. Tf they say like, Oh, we, we are affiliated with UCI blah blah blah. Okay. Ask for the name, ask for the company, ask for whatever they have as a title. And look at. Look at, for here, at UCI. If it appears okay, we’re good. If not, then well, that was a lie. Don’t trust. A fifth one. It. This is something. That I have seen personally some landlords. They tell you a dramatic story like oh, I had to move out because a family member had an accident, and I have a business trip. If I have something blah blah blah blah! I need to leave, so I’m renting out my room. I’m renting out my apartment, and sometimes it’s cheaper, a little more expensive, depending on the community. If the community exist. And they will tell you this compelling story to convince you like, Hey, you need to rent this for from me. I need the money I’m like, it’s urgent. So I will try to go away from that. But I even if it’s true sometimes it gives more problems in the future. So just stay away from that. and last, but not, you know, not less important. and I think this is the pretty, most common sense that they say that they can’t, or they won’t meeting in person. This is a huge thing right now. People that this happens a lot on Facebook posts, because there’s a group of Facebook where you can look for sublease, you can look for apartments, you can look for roommates, etc., etc. And when you ask them like, Oh, I want to see the apartment. I want to see the room. They say, like you know what I can’t, because there’s someone else there, so I I don’t want to disturb them, or they say like, Oh, I won’t meet with you, because it’s dangerous, like I don’t know you. You might do something. You know, when you’re selling these kind of things for real estate. Seeing in person is a big thing, you know, is a big thing for trust. So if they won’t meet, then just stay away from that like this has to be something in person, not something online. I know that in some situations, if you’re not in the country. It’s hard but try to stay away from this. I mean, just take less risk in this kind of scenarios.
Aimee: You could even tell them that you have a friend that would like to see it while you’re out of the country. And if they say oh, no, that doesn’t sound safe to me, that’s probably it, thats probably a red flag right there.
Ramses: You can just cross it from the list. Exactly. Exactly
Aimee: Yeah, no, thank you. Move on to the next. Yeah, no. This website super helpful. I’ve used it as a staff member living in the Irvine area. I live, in what is also known as off-campus housing because I have students that live in my complex and I live just 2 miles away from campus. So definitely have utilized this website, and I’m super glad that we have it. I think off-campus housing you mentioned earlier it it’s it can be more expensive or expenses look different. So what can you expect, per expenses for off campus housing?
Ramses: So There are a couple of them. There are a couple that they share from in campus. In some they are not share from campus, mainly something that is share is they are most of them, they are unfurnitured, and that’s something we’ll touch later on on a pods, on another podcast after this one. But most of them they don’t come with furnished. If they’re unfurnished they might be cheaper but it comes with extra cost, because you need to be, you know, looking for a bed looking for this, looking for whatever else you need. If they have furniture, most of the cases they do have a bed, they do have a desk but I mean, don’t expect to have a sofa, for example, or if you expect to have a sofa, you you expect to have like living room furniture, kitchen furniture, or whatever else that is not your own room, you should expect to have higher rates for this. I mean, these are like on the high end of the off campus, a housing situation. If we talk about money like, usually what I have seen and I I actually seen at the website. They go from 2.5 k (thousand) to 3 k (thousand), like for unfurnished. And this is for, like one or 2 beds, like basically one or 2 rooms but they can go up to 4, 5, 6 k (thousand). For more room for for furniture. You know these kind of things. Also the extra expenses. That’s something I mentioned before, depending on the housing community. You might need to have these extra utilities expenses. Mostly for us students, it will be water, gas, electricity, and Internet. Internet, I mean right now, with. we can’t work without our Internet nowadays. It’s not even for fun. It’s actually for work. So that’s the thing that you must have electricity. I don’t need to explain to you why we need it. Water, gas, the same thing. So those are the ones that will come extra, and that’s something. I will love to give you numbers, but it’s a tricky place. Because it also depends on which providers you have. Something that we have in the U.S., that you have. You can have different providers for these services. So you need to. Actually, you know. take a dive in, do a little research like some they they may offer like some special pricing because it’s student housing. Some others don’t. Sometimes you might be able to split it in the and you know, within the household sometimes, if you have your own apartment well, there’s nothing else you can do around there, right? But yeah, these are the kinds of things that you you should expect to to have this extra expense. These are monthly, furniture is something that you can buy just one time. But other than that, I I mean, I think those are the main ones you you you can have also. The prices might go up or down depending on. If you have a family it’s not the same, if you are a single. It’s easier if you are single, because most of them are looking for single people. but if you have a family, if you have a partner that comes in a different scenario. Some some people did some landlords. They don’t want to have couples. Or if they all of it, then you need to pay more because it needs to be divided between the house members, not by the rooms. And we we when you come to the kids, it’s a a different story. Or because it’s more people. In that case you might be looking for an apartment for yourself, so that increases the the price. There’s also, if you don’t have a family, but you might have a pet, even if it’s an emotional support, pet. Some places are not pet friendly. You can’t expect from all of them to be pet friendly, even though it’s a emotional support. They will try to not have the pet in there. And you know, depending on the pet will be a different story. It’s not the same thing for a cat than for a dog than for a fish like for a bird. I have no people with different pets, and they have different problems with this, because the neighbors, because because of the landlord, because they have to pay extra because you need to pay the license. Blah blah! Blah! You know this can, these are the extra expenses you might you might have from this, and you need to look around with the landlord. What is the, you know, the the perfect deal? You might come up with them, if they are open to it. If not, then you need to look more.
Aimee: Yeah, I will say for utilities for the place that I live in now. We asked them when we moved in kind of what was the average and they couldn’t tell us for electricity, because that varies. You know, we don’t really use a lot of air conditioning, but some people have it going all day long, and that obviously takes a lot of electricity. But they did charge us, they do charge us trash and water, and our complex charges it by person. So again, if you’re like on your own, they’re gonna charge you a little bit less for the buildings use of the water and trash. But if you have a family, even young kids, they’re gonna charge you per person into the usage of the building. And so you always want to ask those questions like, How do these utilities work? Which companies would I be utilizing? That way you do kind of have a heads up. Some places, especially if it’s maybe more of a private landlord might be able to give you an idea of like, oh, the last person that lived here, this is what their utilities looked like. So you can kind of guess based on that. But again, it’s up to your usage to. So those things to make a difference. I will say. I think we utilize probably way less electricity than a lot of our neighbors. I can hear their A/C machines going all the time. So it does definitely depend on your needs in in terms of that as well, and the off-campus housing is more likely to have air conditioning. So that is something. If you are really not comfortable in a hot weather. I will say that is one of the benefits of paying more to maybe like off campus.
Ramses: Yeah. And actually, you mentioned something really important, like, the A/C is one thing that’s something that in campus does don’t have, I mean, the more. The closest thing is like ceiling fans. But for off campus you do, you do have A/C, and also now that the home office is a thing you need to keep looking on that electricity rates, because a lot of people they usually stay at home. So which means, you know, more time using electricity and depending on the time. You know, it’s not a flat rate. If you use certain amount of watts per hour, you go into different tiers and different tiers might be cheaper, might be more expensive, depending on the amount. That’s something we that actually, as I I didn’t mention. Also, there are some communities that they already like, let’s say, kind of married with certain company, because it’s the for the whole complex. So that’s something else. Not all of them will give you the freedom to say like, Oh, I don’t want the service. I don’t want this one, because it’s cheaper, is like. Well, do you have? You know, we have a complex contract. You can go away from it. So it’s in looking to those little details as well. Yeah.
Aimee: And that comes even down to Internet for us when we started in our complex, we, we we always ask because we really like to have really high speed. My husband works from home all the time. I work from home pretty regularly. So we really enjoy having Google fiber. But we also had an option, for I think it was Cox was the other option it was had pretty good rates as well. So we just looked at what we want if my husband works for Google. So it made more sense for us to use Google. But I think that some of the complexes do only have the one option. So if you are really particular about those things, you definitely want to ask those questions, because it can get pricey in some spaces. If they only have, like the super fancy Internet, you’re gonna be paying for the super fancy Internet, whether you want it or not.
Ramses: Yeah. You know it will extra cost, because sometimes, if they don’t have the structure like to have it, you need to pay extra for installation. So installation rates are, you know, another thing to think about. It’s a, it’s a different company that you already have in the complex. So
Aimee: yeah, yeah, always the small small things add up after a while, too. So we we talked about families right like, if I came in with my partner or kids or pets. But what if I’m coming in by myself? But I’m looking for roommates. Do you have the opportunity to choose one? Can you bring your own roommate? Do they have to be a student? Can you talk a little bit about that?
Ramses: Yeah sure, actually there is a big thing for this before it was more complicated because you weren’t able to choose your roommates or bring your own. In that case you need to rent your own apartment, and, you know, pay the whole rating. Have you the lease under you. But with the website that we’re using from UCI, they have this tab where you can just sign up you create your profile and say, like, I want to live with some someone that has this and that, I’m okay with pets. I’m okay with this. I’m okay with parties. I’m okay with drinking. I don’t like smoking, you know all these what we call pet peeves, for example, they have.
And it will try to match you with someone, or you can look for someone as well. You can filter out like, oh, I want this like features, whatever you want to call it, and they will pop up from all their people that are actually sign up there. And it’s easy, because you you can match with the people with the person you talk with the person, you can look together for something in the same website. So everything is in the same in the same environment in the same system. So it will be easier to have this lease, because, okay, we met here. We have our profile. The school already knows about this so they can cross relay the information, and it will be easier for you to get these, let’s say, guarantee or safe housing options, because they are affiliated to UCI. This is not a third party that I’m talking to a landloard, that I might not see any time on my life, or I just see once, and then he disappears. He or she disappeared. This is actually from UCI. So yeah, you can actually select for roommates. You can look for roommates, or if you have your roommate, you can just have them sign up, and and there you go. Just go hunt for your dream housing.
Aimee: I think one of the benefits of that is, yeah, that affiliation. So if you, I wouldn’t recommend meeting someone online, right? We go back to that scammers thing. If they, don’t want it like even Facetime with you. Probably not a safe thing that you wanna to go forward with. But you know, if you’re using this, or if maybe you’ve come to one of our GIC panels and you put your name out there like, Hey, I’m you know, interested in finding someone to live with, and I would prefer another international student who knows my experience. You know you’re welcome to meet people that way. And then it’s in a little more of a safe, structured environment. So we do really encourage you to be super mindful of that. Especially if you’re not in the U.S,. already and couldn’t like meet someone.
Ramses: I mean you talked on such a really good thing on there. Like, if you’re an international, I think there’s an option to select like any other language. So you might be looking from some other person or people that are actually from your home country. That my I I mean as an as an international student. We get homesick every now and then, so that might help, you know. Get some other internationals from your own country, you know. Try to be homesick together rather than alone.
Aimee: Yeah, you can cook food together. You can listen to your music. You can speak your language and definitely, always a great option if you are able to find someone that that fills that need. So we talked about utilities. And we talked about that some of them are kind of a flat rate place. Some of them are more contracted out where you kind of have to search individually. Ours is a little weird that my complex, our water and trash are kind of assigned by the building like the apartment complex. So it’s billed through my rent. So it just gets added to my rent. But I have to pay gas and electricity and Internet on my own. So sometimes they’re kind of split up funny. And any suggestions on how people could maybe keep track of that or what they should do ahead of time to make sure they know how to set up their utilities.
Ramses: That that will be something that I will do research before going to housing. I mean, if you already like, kind of know, I have a rough idea, like, okay, I will like to live this in this in this community. First of all, look ask, you need to as directly to the managers, to whatever landlord they have like. If they already have these kind of services if they’re already included in the complex, or if they are not included, maybe they have certain, I would say a certain contract that they offer for let I mean cheaper service because they have these history, this record. or if they have the opportunity to have you know whatever service you want? I know for yeah, for like Internet. Because you one cable, there are certain providers that are already like for certain communities. Since UCI has this huge contract with, I think it’s Cox, if not, or ResNet. I cannot remember the name of the of the service provider. So usually most of the off-campus communities. They have similar contracts with the providers, which is good and bad. You know, it’s good because it’s it’s a lower price, bad, because it’s more like communities. Usually they are already like out. We don’t want any other provider, because we already have this contract, but usually some others they have like, okay, we have this, but you don’t want it. Well, you can get whatever you want, else you want. And this is another good thing, but it it. It creates competence. So all the prices should be similar. You know, it doesn’t make sense. Okay, if these service it’s cheaper. And I have this other competitor that competitor will keep the same prices that are like 2 or 3 times higher. Sometimes they just lower down a little bit. I don’t know a couple of bucks below, but you know it’s something. It’s something. So that will be the only thing I will say like, try to gather around whatever if they are already like related to each other between services, maybe you can, and have a good deal on them, if not they on it. It will be some it will be some extra work. Just keep tabs on everything, and use some third party app or an excel sheet the least, and right down you like. You know all your end is your payment days and and keeping track of whatever you use.
Aimee: Yeah, I use a spreadsheet because my payment dates all come in on different times. So I highly recommend having a spreadsheet or a reminder in your calendar that’s like, Hey, gotta go pay that bill. Most of them come electronically, you’ll usually get like a notice through your email. But just in case you’re bad at checking your email. Sometimes it happens, I think it’s good to check those. I also recommend reading on the website. So you brought up earlier the electricity like using it during certain times of day. When I signed up for my electricity, it warned me about that, and it said, Do you want to save money by being a part of a plan where, if you use majority of your usage in the certain time periods, you’re gonna save money. and I was like, of course, I want to save money. Obviously, who doesn’t. Life is expensive in California. So like we don’t wash our clothes between like 4 and 9, because that’s like the peak period. When people are cooking. We try and use like we try and cook things ahead of time. So we try and use like the minimum amount of electricity during that time period. So I you know, I recommend looking at those things and kind of remembering like, Okay, if I don’t, if I use my washer and dryer from 4 to 9, it’s going to be way more expensive. If I don’t have to do that during that time period I should really wait, or maybe I should air dry my clothes. So make sure you’re reading those things. and that goes into just making sure that you read your lease too. Different apartments, have different requirements on what you can have on your patio, and not hanging things. This is a requirement everywhere, and don’t hang things from the little sprayers when you know like when the fire there’s like a a fire sprayer, and all the apartments. If there’s a fire that gives water out. I see people hanging stuff from those all the time, and they they can break, and they can flood your apartment. and so don’t do that. There’s also insurance. So that’s another utility. Most places require you to do renters insurance. Some of them have a company they work with that can give you a discount, and it’s like ready set, and they just add it into your lease. So those are always things to to think about in terms of like those little extra expenses that we all put into utilities.
Ramses: Yeah, you know thats something to. Actually, you mentioned something that I think I forgot to mention. Actually, I didn’t think about now I think about it. So I remember if I mentioned, I’m from Mexico, I’m an international student, and usually here in Mexico for stoves, we’re used to have gas stoves. So my expectations when I first came here was okay. I will have some gas expense when I came to the U.S.. At least for all the places have I have been stoves are electric, so your actual, your electric rate will increase or depending on how many times you cook. And the gas bill goes for heating water. Which is the opposite I have here in Mexico. My gas bill is on cooking, and my electricity is of heating water. So it’s it’s the opposite here. And since I cook, a lot I mean for water. It’s heated only when you shower, I mean, even though you shower every day. It’s not that big amount. If you actually save a water. If you take showers of more than an hour, then you’re on a different plate.
Aimee: Yeah, or really hot showers,
Ramses: Yeah or really hot shower. You know. but for for cooking, I mean we at least cook 3 times a day. So it’s a huge change on that side. And this comes to another thing you actually mentioned about the the times for electricity, and this actually begun like 2 years ago. If I remember well, we’d all these heat waves and everything. We were told that you should avoid using any electric thing between 4 pm to 6 pm, at least in California. So at that time we have a lot of like shut downs. Just randomly rlectricity went down for a couple of hours because it was too hot. And that’s the time that people turn their ACs on. They’re already back at home. They turn the TV. They start working on the computer. They’re playing on the computer. They’re just hanging out on on on your house. So, as I mentioned before, depending on how much you use will be the tier, least you will be, it will be the more payment, and also that comes with the these special contracts for green energy. That’s something. I actually that I saw it on. What’s the name of this company? I think it was Edison. You can sign that for these special contract, like you have certain hours a day if you use, around those hours, which is that not the peak is like below peak, you get for cheaper.
Aimee: Yeah that’s what I have. So I do my laundry at like 6 in the morning, so that it’s like because no one else is awake at 6 in the morning. I’m half awake doing my laundry so that I’m saving money because I’m signed up on that plan, so I always recommend looking into those, because I think they’re really great options and some complexes even have your, off-campus. I see a lot of them nowadays they have what’s called a nest thermostat, and you can set it into green energy mode. And so it will do the like. Outside temperature is this. So we’re gonna make sure that you’re staying cool, but not like over taxing the energy system and so we use that a lot. And I can pop on my phone, actually, like, if we’re on vacation. And I can say, like, we don’t need to have this on it. And I forgot to turn it off. You can use it on your phone. So a lot of complexes are moving towards that. So we don’t have those blackouts. My recommendation is, don’t turn your AC on during those peak periods. Just go to a coffee shop or go sit in a bookstore or walk around target.
Ramses: Exactly
Aimee: That’s what we usually do or something. Or go to Costco.
Ramses: Yeah I go to Target or go to Wal-Mart.
Aimee: Go someplace, else where you go are not paying for the air conditioning, and someone else can pay for it on your behalf. Because that’s definitely always a better option. Last couple of things that we we wanted to talk about amenities. So we talked a little bit about air conditioning being one of those really great off-campus amenities. Obviously, buildings on campus are usually air conditioned and when it’s really bad, like when the heat is really bad. If you’re on campus housing, there are places for you to go to cool down and study and hang out but for those other amenities. What other kind of differences would you see in on campus and off-campus housing?
Ramses: Yeah. Actually, like you said. for us in in campus. We do have a community center, basically, which is that one with has AC has lounges, study rooms, etc., you know. But for off campus, having in mind that there are more expensive actually they you usually have a little bit more like they go on the extra. Why, I mentioned extra, I know, like most of them, some of they have pools, for example, that it’s part of your amenity, you’re paying for it. I mean, that’s why, you’re paying the big bucks to have this apartment. You have a pool that you can use. This is something that we share with in campus and off campus as well for laundry. There’s this place where it’s a community laundry in place you have for a washers and dryers there. If you’re paying an extra sometimes the same apartment has its own washer and dryer. But I mean, that comes with extra extra money, you know. So these are some kind of amenities. Some of there’s I know, some of. They have gyms, for example, they have, they also have study rooms. They have a lounge. they have pool table, foosball tables. I have heard some others have, like a even a tennis court or a basketball court over there. So, depending on the on the housing community you select from the the off campus list, you have more or less these kind of things I already mentioned, but usually it’s the the laundry centers, the pools, the basketball court. They are just the most frequent ones they have. I mean, which, you know, make it work to actually pay extra. Because if it’s just the apartment, well, you know.
Aimee: yeah, why would I pay extra for that.
Ramses: Exactly.
Aimee: I know there’s a couple that have like playgrounds for kids or a dog park. If it’s a pet friendly place, they may have, like a a space for you to take your dog out to go walk, and and do their thing. So those are definitely things that you you pay for. I know some of the complexes have multiple pools, and they look like hotels, and they look like a full on resort.
Ramses: Yeah they do!
Aimee: So you pay for those extra things. So you really have to kind of weigh, especially if you got an offer to live on campus but you’re considering living off campus. You really have to weigh like what are your needs? What’s going to make you most comfortable? And is it in your budget to move off campus for those additional things like a fancy resort style pool? That’s salt water, and I’ve been apartment hunting lately. So I know that there’s there’s a lot of interesting different things that they they try and get you to to move into their complex for. But you definitely want to weigh. I think one of the big things when it comes to expenses that I weigh when I’m looking at housing is, can I walk for me to work? But for students it’d be to school. Can I walk to campus? Is on the bus route. or am I going to need a car? Because a car which we’ll talk about later comes with a lot of additional expenses. And so if you’re like, maybe I don’t want to get a car, and I’d rather live closer to campus if it’s $300 more. Is that gonna be still cheaper than buying a car and having the lease and having insurance and gas and upkeep, and all those additional things. So definitely recommend that you, you think about all of the different expenses that go into it.
Ramses: Yeah of course.
Aimee: So I think the last thing that we wanted to talk about was subletting. And so could you maybe describe what subletting is, if that’s different. For some people that word might not be super.common.
Ramses: Yeah of course, that’s something that once you get to UCI you will hear a lot. For these housing situations. Subletting is basically, lets put an example, I do have the lease. I have do have the contract for this apartment of 2 bedrooms. Right? I’m the holder of that contract. I’m the the one who has the responsibility for everything. Let’s say that you want to rent out one of the rooms or the whole apartment. So what I would do, instead of releasing my lease and give a new contract to you. We will actually form a contract between you and me. I will be still be the holder for the community, like in the name. I will be the holder. But I’m making this extra contract, saying like, Okay, Aimee will be the one paying for this room, for this amount of time. I will still be responsible for the whole thing but in this situation she will be the like a temporary holder, let’s say, for the summer, this range of time, in case it’s a whole apartment. If it’s just a room, you know it it it it has different conditions. But it’s basically It’s a temporary contract where I don’t lose my what I say, like my ownership on the on the place. It’s some more usual, for in campus housing, which is another option, and actually, you can see through the same website. Usually people are in campus, sometimes they do internships, they go back home for a month, 2 months, or they have something else that they they need to leave the apartment, but they don’t want to lose the the lease, so what they do they do. They offer sublet they over so for the subleasing on the on the website, or something through Facebook. Some others through CraigList, you know these other websites where you could look around, or they just offer it through, you know. friends to friends, to friends, to friends. So you might hear around that. But that that’s basically it. And it’s another good option as well. Sometimes they come at the same price as the the owner is is paying. Sometimes they go for cheaper. That’s the cool thing about it. They go for cheaper, and you don’t need to buy furniture because they’re already furniture from the owner. So it’s a good option to to look around. I mean,
Aimee: yeah, yeah, it can be a win-win.
Ramses: Exactly.
Aimee: It’s like, if someone is like, Hey, I need, I need to go to this internship. So I’m gonna charge you less to live in my place, and I’m only going to pay $200 a month to keep my lease in my place, and maybe store a few things there, whatever it is. But I’m not going to have to pay my whole entire rent while I have 2 different rents going on, so it can be a a win-win. And we you mentioned lease, and we haven’t covered that. And so one thing I will say is, when you sign a contract with a landlord or apartment complex, you’re going to have a lease term, which is the length of time, and I’ve noticed a lot of places in Irvine, you can kind of select what it is. The the least amount of time is going to be more expensive. The longest amount of time is going to be the cheapest. Sometimes sometimes there’s a a weird middle, I would say in Irvine 13 – 14 months seems to be the cheapest. It’s a weird number for some reason that seems to be it. But that is the time that you’re saying I will live here. So you obviously subletting, or some in some cases breaking your lease to leave early might be a better option. But you may want to consider like oh, I don’t really know how I like this area yet. Do I want to pay a little more and have a shorter term lease and see if I like it, or do I just wanna do whatever is the cheapest and get the cheapest. But when you’re at lease renews, especially in off campus housing, they can increase your rent, and so, like my lease renewed this last year, and they increased my rent by like a $150 a month. And so it’s I call it a tax. It’s like a tax on not moving out of your complex, not having to pack up everything and move to a whole new place. And I mean there are benefits to obviously staying somewhere that you’re comfortable with. But once your lease ends, they can increase the amount of money that you would spend, or you can do, month to month, which is. it goes up and down every month. So there’s lots of things I would always discuss that with the complex or landlord that you’re working with as well.
Ramses: Yeah, actually, that’s really important. Because, I mean, the idea is that. for example, if you do a lease for 12 months, let’s say the ideal is for you, you know, like at 7 at the month number 7, I said, you know what I want to move out. I just break my lease and let’s go, you know. But thats not the reality for what I know, and my my experience. Most places. They don’t let you break the the lease unless you pay a penalty, and penalties are high. That’s why subleasing exist. That’s why most people at least off campus, because they don’t want to break the lease, because it will be extra payment, so they prefer to rent it out to someone else, pay the same rate, or pay even less for me to just get out there because I find a better place, because I don’t need any more. You can name the reason. Also for subleasing I say, I said, that it was a contract between the the holder and then your renter right? These subleasing contracts they need to be given to the housing office as well. This is not something that is person to person. No, I mean, it is person to person. But you need to give out that contract to the actually, like the community, because they need to know that gives you trust that if something happened may maybe the the the person with the lease will be doing something bad, or they will try to scam you, and if they don’t know, then you will not be protected. So it’s another type of scam that can happen even for in campus off campus you still you think that you sign the contract. You need to give that contract to the the community, to the community office. So they know, like, okay, this person who is a holder is subleasing this other apartment under this person name. So okay, we already know you can continue because for responsibility, for scamming for anything else you you might think about. You need to be protected. So just stay aware of that. I mean, if the holder they don’t call the housing office about your subleasing well that’s a red flag. You need to ask for it.
Aimee: Yeah. And I will say a lot of the off-campus ones do like background checks because they want to know who’s living in their complex to see if there’s any been any issues in previous complexes, or to see if there’s, you know, maybe yeah, like something going on that they would definitely want to to know before moving someone in. A lot of the apartment complexes off campus maybe have a gated areas to. So for security. I do know. One of the benefits of some of the off-campus ones is that they have like package rooms. So if you’re like ordering something online at my complex, it goes to the package room, and then I don’t have to worry about it sitting on my doorstep if I’m on vacation, or had to go away suddenly, or just, you know, am not, did not hear the door knock, and someone’s now stealing my package. So there’s a little more security in some of the off campus complexes. Not that, that’s not on campus, too, but the off campus just offers different things directly in your building where campus those package lockers are available in the area or in what you’ll you’ll get to know, UTC. It’s right across it’s a shopping center, right near campus.
Ramses: It’s very limited. It’s very limited. I mean, that that comes with what I mentioned before, you pay extra for these services. That’s why rent is more expensive. But I mean, sometimes it’s worth, you know. And even when you said before, like for a car and everything again off campus doesn’t mean that you will be 10 miles away. It’s just across the street.
Aimee: No, I mean there are ones that are just as close as some of the on campus housing too,
Ramses: I mean, even closer sometimes. And that’s crazy. Some some of the off-campus communities are closer than some of the in campus communities. So it’s a, it’s a good mix of thing.
Aimee: Yeah, definitely. So you just have to look out. You know what’s what’s important for you. when you’re looking at your community. Any last advice on the housing process for off-campus?
Ramses: I mean, I I will just say, double check everything double check, triple check, 4 times, check, five times check and ask around. I mean, UCI has a lot of resources. I mean, you’re having this is right. This podcasts are resource. We are people that you can actually ask for like, hey, I have this, I go through to the website. I have a doubt. You’re free to ask. Ask around. It’s they they won’t ask for a fee for asking, asking is free. So better ask, actually paying a penalty of being scam. So that will be my advice.
Aimee: Yeah, definitely, you know, that’s one of the reasons that GIC exists. We’re here to help you as you transition. So thank you for joining us for this podcast Ramses it’s always good to chat with you. For those of you who are tuning in a couple of episodes coming up we’ll talk about things like furniture that we brought up earlier, so make sure you come back. Have a good one!
Ramses: Thank you very much.