Parents are buying homes in college towns so their kids can live rent-free. Sometimes, they’re even cashing out big.

When Candice St. Pierre’s college-aged daughter determined that dorm living wasn’t for her, she didn’t object. In fact, she was glad.

“Dorms are not cheap,” St. Pierre, 53, told Business Insider. “I knew that once you paid for the housing, you also are required to do the meal plans. So we didn’t even consider the dorms.”

For her daughter’s first two years at the Savannah College of Art & Design, St. Pierre paid $1,000 a month for her to live in apartments off-campus. But she got tired of co-signing leases and taking chances on shady college-affiliated apartments where security deposits would vanish and she’d be hit with inexplicable move-out fees.

In 2024, St. Pierre took matters into her own hands and bought a four-bedroom Victorian home in Midtown Savannah, Georgia, for $485,000. She said it was the most expensive house she’d ever bought.

She converted the living room into another bedroom, so with four other girls staying there, she collects $3,500 a month in rent. Her mortgage is $3,494, she said, so her daughter essentially stays for free.

St. Pierre believes she made the right call for her daughter and hopes the purchase will be a good investment.

“I think my chances are pretty good that I will get a profit off of it whenever I do decide to sell,” she said. “I may hold onto it and rent it out to someone else, and rent it as a whole house. Maybe I might use it as a vacation home for a little while.”

Buying your college kid a home is a profitable side-hustle for some parents

The rising costs of college tuition and room and board and the growing popularity of real estate side-hustles has led more entrepreneurial-minded parents to try their hand at the landlord game, buying property for their children that they can then rent out to other roommates to cover the mortgage. Though many parents hope to profit when they eventually sell, even breaking even is a good deal.

An analysis of 121 colleges by Mortgage Research Network showed that some college towns bear more fruit than others. Out of the schools analyzed, buying a home was less expensive than room and board in 23 of the 121 markets, many of which are small cities or rural towns in the South. For example, parents with children attending Temple University in Philadelphia, the school that ranked highest on the list for the most savings, could save $29,742 in a three-year period compared to paying $50,904 for room and board.

Still, being a landlord to young college students — especially your own kid — doesn’t come without some work.

“It’s not for the faint of heart. Sometimes you do get those late-night calls, and you have to go into problem-solving mode immediately,” St. Pierre said.

“If you don’t have any experience in real estate, this is probably not the time to learn.”

Nearly 300 miles north of Savannah, Georgia, in South Carolina, LeAnne Carswell had the same idea as St. Pierre.

Carswell’s son had been living in a dorm on Clemson University’s campus with three other roommates. But when it became time to move off-campus, Carswell, 51, balked at paying $12,000 a year for her son to live in a fancy apartment complex with his friends. So she purchased a townhome for her son in the area for $227,000.

Carswell paid for it in cash, so there’s no mortgage, and she charges her son’s roommate $775 a month. Though Carswell bought the townhome as an investment and hoped merely to break even, she said she very well could profit when she eventually sells.

Either way, Carswell said, “I wasn’t looking to lose $12,000 a year for the next three or four years.”

It can pay to bet on a college town

Karen Yould did a lot more than break even when she sold a property she bought for her son. Yould, who lives in Newport Beach, California, bought her son and his fiancée a two-bedroom home in Missoula, Montana, sight-unseen for $220,000 in 2018.

Yould said her son, who was attending law school in the state, had paid for all of his schooling, so she wanted to help ease the financial burden by cutting his housing costs. He contributed by paying the utilities and property taxes.

“The premise of it came about that if I could afford to rent or purchase something, it would provide the two of them with just a little bit more of an enjoyable experience for the whole four years that they were going to be in the area instead of renting a dingy apartment,” Yould told Business Insider. “I was hoping I would make some money. I was a little bit surprised that we made such a nice return on it.”

Yould sold the home in 2022 for $415,000, profiting nearly $200,000 on the sale. She considered renting it out for a steady income, but didn’t want the hassle of being a landlord from 1,200 miles away.

Though her return on investment was bigger than expected, Yould said she was right to bet on a college town.

“I think if you’re looking for investments, a college town is always going to be vibrant.”

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