Students looking for a place to live off of Ohio University’s campus have a new resource to help them — Student Senate’s property-rating Web site, PickAProperty.

The site, found at pickaprop.admsrv.ohio.edu/pickaprop, allows students both to rate their current off-campus home and to search for information about other student properties.

“It’s really hard to find housing and we recognize that,” said Stefanie Skaggs, Student Senate off-campus commissioner. “It shouldn’t be as hard as it is.”

Properties on the Web site are rated in such categories as safety, landlord satisfaction and response time, neighborhood noise and the condition of the house and appliances. Information about rent, utilities costs and number of bedrooms and bathrooms is also included.

A comment box where students can add more important information about their residences may be added to the site, Skaggs said.

Off-Campus Senator Josh Gargiulo said that getting the input from the residents of the property would give students “a better idea of what they’re getting themselves into.”

Gargiulo compared the PickAProperty site to its namesake, PickAProf.com, in terms of usefulness to students.
“I’m hoping this is the resource students will go to first when looking for residences,” he said.

After coming up with the idea three years ago, Student Senate’s Off-Campus Commission worked with the Office of Information Technology to make sure only OU students could access the Web site. Students can log on to the site using their OAK IDs. IT also makes sure that the site’s servers are working properly and provides security, Skaggs said.
While there is no way to keep landlords from influencing what is said about their properties on the site, Gargiulo said he hopes students will be truthful in their evaluations.

Senate’s Off-Campus Commission will manage the site, mainly going through the ratings to make sure nothing suspicious or inappropriate is posted. The commission will also be responsible for adding streets and landlords not currently on the site.

Although there is no cost for Student Senate to run the Web site, they received funding from the Center for Legal Services to help pay for the domain name and salaries for the graduate students who made the site.