The housing and rental market in Grand Junction is horrible. Too many people, including myself, are realizing it is harder and harder to find a place to live. Finding an apartment in this city has been a real pain in my back that just won’t ease up.
I am an international student and I want to live off campus for my second year at Colorado Mesa University (CMU) and it has been a challenge to find a place. I have lost count of how many times I have been denied a lease or showings have been canceled for no reason whatsoever.
I have used real estate websites and apps (Redfin, Hotpads, forent.com, etc) in Grand Junction to find apartments, and it often shows options that are no longer available or apartments that are taken already. After a couple of weeks, whatever property management company I was talking to at that moment would straight up ghost me in the most childish way possible
The influx of new people in Grand Junction has made it very complicated to find affordable apartments. Adding insult to injury, many landlords are turning them into AirBnB’s which puts even more people looking for long-term housing in an impossible situation. Sometimes I wonder if the people managing the housing market in Grand Junction want to actually rent these places, because it feels like they don’t. Real estate agents don’t seem to have any offices or if they do no one’s ever there.
I know that many students graduating soon will run into these problems, even if they don’t stay in Grand Junction. They may find themselves unable to find affordable housing. This might force them to leave after graduating or have them move back in with their parents. I almost regret leaving campus in the first place because of my international status. Out here I really have no support.
CMU doesn’t really offer any guidance on how to find an apartment off campus. After submitting my request, the school just assumed that I knew what to do. It is funny that even though we are coming to college to learn about “adulthood” we are still ignorant towards simple things.
The school needs to be better about advertising their housing resources. I didn’t know that there was a support service for finding off campus housing until nearly four months into my search. It is incredibly annoying to be on the hunt and not know about the support that the college offers. I should have been told when I applied to live off campus. It’s not obvious that this service exists so it’s practically useless. Lately, I don’t know what to think. It’s sketchy that after so many inquiries I still can’t find an apartment after almost four months.
