Richard Joseph Spinelli runs student housing on the streets around Arthur Avenue through Sandhills Real Estate, the company he cofounded, so this page is written from inside the buildings rather than from listings. It describes the housing stock, who rents it, how the leases work and when the year turns, and it points renters to Live Off the Hill for the company's own units.

What the buildings are

Belmont was built for large families before the war, and it shows. The stock is mostly walk ups of three to five stories, some with storefronts below, and attached townhouses with stone stoops on the side streets. Apartments were laid out with real bedrooms and real doors, which is why groups of four or five students fit into them now without anyone sleeping in a living room. Radiators, high ceilings, narrow stairwells and plaster walls come with the era, and so does the character.

Who rents them

On the blocks nearest Fordham Road, mostly groups of Fordham students, who sign together for an apartment or a whole townhouse. Elsewhere in the neighborhood, families and long term residents, many of whom have been on the same block for decades. A renter deciding between a unit above the avenue and one on a side street is deciding between convenience and quiet, and both choices are reasonable.

How a group lease works

In a group lease everyone signs one document and the group as a whole is the tenant, which is the single line in the paperwork worth reading twice. A guarantor is standard near campus, since students rarely have income of their own yet, and the lease spells out the utilities, the repair channel and the sublet rule. A group that has those four things explained before signing has very few arguments afterward.

The calendar

Leasing around Arthur Avenue runs on the university's clock. Groups form and start looking in the fall, sign in winter, sort out renewals and roommate changes in spring, and move in the last weeks of August, which is the same week for everyone. A group that understands the rhythm gets the unit it wants; a group that starts in May chooses from what is left.

What to check on a showing

Run the shower, open the windows, ask how the heat behaves in February, check the cell signal in the back bedroom, find the laundry, and ask who answers the phone when something breaks and how quickly. In an old building the last question is the one that decides the year.

The company's units

Sandhills Real Estate's buildings stand on the Belmont side streets from Bathgate Avenue across to Belmont Avenue, each a walk from Rose Hill, and lease to groups through the Live Off the Hill brand. How the company runs them is the subject of its own site.