In Charlottesville, living in off-Grounds housing often requires signing a year-long lease agreement. These year-long agreements may leave students paying rent even when they are away, such as if they are studying abroad or living at home over the summer. To avoid the extra costs, many students look to sublet their housing for a semester or during the summer.
A sublease agreement involves adding a new tenant to the lease, which provides the original tenant a way to cover costs while away, and the subtenant an opportunity for housing without the year-long commitment.
Rising third-year College student Aidan McNerney is subleasing his room in a house this fall, as he will be studying abroad in Dublin for the semester. After confirming he would be participating in the study abroad program, he began looking for students to sublet his room for the semester.
McNerney looked to GroupMe, a mobile group messaging app, at the end of the spring semester with the goal of finding a student interested in subleasing his room. He joined a public group with about 130 members titled “U.Va. Housing,” and within a day, he received six responses of interest.
“[The GroupMe] actually worked a lot faster than I expected it to, because I figured there were so many people on there that what were the odds of people responding to mine?” McNerney said. “Then, I suddenly got a ton of responses in one day.”
McNerney messaged back and forth with one of the people who responded, sharing pictures of the room and providing cost information. Soon after that, they both signed a sublease agreement to make it official. Overall, McNerney found the process to be much easier than he expected.
“The GroupMe actually made it quite easy, because it connects so many different people who are looking for all sorts of different things,” McNerney said.
However, not all students have had luck with the “U.Va. Housing” GroupMe. Fourth-year College student Sophia Hanover studied abroad in Valencia last spring. Starting her search in the beginning of the fall semester, Hanover did not have success finding someone to take over her lease for the spring.
Hanover said that if she could do anything differently, she would be more persistent with her messages on GroupMe and utilize other resources such as Facebook groups to search for a subletter.
“[I’d be] more diligent on GroupMe…I think I'd also try to look on Facebook,” Hanover said. “It's a hard housing market because a lot of people study abroad [spring] semester.”
According to the Education Abroad Office, 476 students, including both undergraduates and graduates, studied abroad in the spring of the 2023-2024 academic year. Only 245 studied abroad in the fall of the same academic year. Data has not yet been released for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instead of connecting with students across the University through GroupMe, some students choose to sign sublease agreements with friends or mutual friends.
Rising third-year Batten student Anila Noushin is staying in Charlottesville this summer as an intern for the University’s Center for Politics. Initially, Noushin thought about living in her friend's apartment in the complex Grandmarc at The Corner, which had an open room for the summer. However, the high rent of around $1,200 per month turned her away.
Instead, Noushin decided to sublease a room in her friend’s house who will be away from Charlottesville this summer. After coming to an agreement in April, Noushin now pays around $500 per month to live there. Noushin recommended reaching out to friends if looking for somewhere to temporarily live or if looking for someone to take over part of your lease.
“I definitely say [subleasing from a friend] is probably the best route,” Noushin said. “I feel like you trust that your friends will lead you the right way.”
Similarly to Noushin, rising third-year College student Céleste Wetmore is staying in Charlottesville this summer and taking over the lease of her friend’s apartment for the months of June and July. Wetmore lived on-Grounds her second year, so her lease with the University did not extend past the end of the spring semester. This summer, she is participating in a primarily in-person internship with Albemarle County’s Economic Development Office.
Wetmore said she found the process of finding someone to sublet from to be much easier than expected because many students look to sublet their housing during the summer. The process of officially switching the lease, however, she found to be a little more complex.
“It was so easy to find someone to sublet to me,” Wetmore said. “The process of officially switching a lease [to the subletter] is a little bit time-consuming, but it's … doable.”
Wetmore did not finalize her sublease agreement until a week before she moved in around late May.
“I honestly did all of this a little last minute, because both myself and my friend thought that it would be as simple as me just moving in and Venmo-ing how much the rent was each month,” Wetmore said. “We found out that that's actually illegal and it's against the contract that she signed. So we had to switch the lease to my name.”
After having signed a sublease agreement, McNerney said he received an email from the University’s Education Abroad Office June 9, asking if he would be interested in subleasing his apartment to an incoming exchange student.
“U.Va. emailed me as a fall semester exchange student to say that they could connect me with exchange students coming to U.Va. to take over my room for the fall,” McNerney said. “I didn't even know that was an option, because they never advertised that sort of thing anywhere.”
In a statement to The Cavalier Daily, International Student and Scholar Advisor Lora Steiner said that the Education Abroad Office is open to feedback on this process of connecting inbound and outbound students, which was only introduced within the last year.
“Last year, we started working [on] a process to help connect U.Va. students studying abroad with students coming to U.Va. for a semester,” Steiner said. “We are still working on refining that process in a way that supports both inbound and outbound students, and feedback is certainly helpful so we can best understand and communicate.”
Steiner noted that demand for on-Grounds housing has increased in the last few years, and that it is no longer guaranteed exchange students will receive on-Grounds housing. Steiner added that as long as their need for housing continues, the Education Abroad Office hopes to offer incoming exchange students the opportunity to connect with outbound students every semester.
McNerney said he wishes the University informed students earlier that this would be an option as they looked for people to take over their leases for the fall semester. He thinks this would have provided him a bit more certainty during the process.
“I think they should have made that more clear within the study abroad resources that was an option,” McNerney said. “Because I thought I was kind of on my own for that, and worried for a long time that I wouldn’t be able to find anyone.”
Steiner said that the Education Abroad Office is continuing to work on the process so that housing information gets out to both inbound and outbound students “in a timely way.”
The Education Abroad Office offers advice on their website regarding housing plans and studying abroad. The website includes tips on how to find someone to take over your lease while abroad, as well as how to find someone to sublet from while in Charlottesville.
Their website mentions U-loop, a website where students can post advertisements to sublet their own apartment or look at postings from people trying to find a subletter. Talking to friends who may be studying abroad in the opposite semester as you to see if they are open to signing a sublease agreement is also suggested.
However, their website does not include information about being able to connect study abroad students with exchange students coming to the University.
McNerney said he had a more positive than expected experience finding someone to take over his lease for the semester.
“I think it sounds more stressful than it is.” McNerney said. “I'm sure that it doesn't go quite as easily for some people … so I don't want to insinuate that it's always easy… but you do have more resources than you realize.”
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