Redfin Names 15 Colleges Where Students Should Buy Real Estate Instead of Rent Dorms

In Addition to Saving Monthly, Students Who Buy Can Build Equity While Earning Their Degrees

SEATTLE — At 47 public U.S. colleges, it's more cost effective for a student to buy a condo than rent a dorm room on campus, according to Redfin, the next-generation real estate brokerage. Dorm rooms in the U.S. range in cost from $232 to $1,817 per month, with a median monthly rate of $705. To find out where students could save on housing costs, Redfin compared the monthly dorm rate at 195 U.S. public colleges with the median monthly mortgage on a condo in each of those cities.

The top 15 list was ordered by enrollment to show the most popular schools first.

Coming in at number one on the list is The University of Arizona in Tucson, which Redfin real estate agent Misty Hurley says isn't surprising.

"I've had lots of parents contact me after comparing the cost of renting versus buying a home for their college student," she said. "They're often coming from places like Washington D.C., Los Angeles or Seattle, where home prices are much higher. The median sale price in Tucson is $195,000, so well below the national median sale price of $293,000 that Redfin reported in August."

Rounding out the top five list were Georgia State University, the University of South Carolina, Kent State University and Louisiana State University, all of which are in cities with median home prices below the national average.

In addition to saving on monthly housing costs in these cities, there are other perks to purchasing real estate.

"Homeownership can be a great way to build wealth," said Hurley. "Students will build equity that they can one day use as a downpayment on a move-up home or to pay off student loans. If they choose not to sell right away, they'll have a piece of property that's ripe for renting, as there are always new college students looking for rentals."

Read the full report here.

About Redfin

Redfin is the next-generation real estate brokerage, combining its own full-service agents with modern technology to redefine real estate in the consumer's favor. Founded by software engineers, Redfin has the country's #1 brokerage website and offers a host of online tools to consumers, including the Redfin Estimate, the automated home-value estimate with the industry's lowest published error rate for listed homes. Homebuyers and sellers enjoy a full-service, technology-powered experience from Redfin real estate agents, while saving thousands in commissions. Redfin serves more than 80 major metro areas across the U.S. The company has closed more than $50 billion in home sales.