Catherine Alaimo
As students search for housing both on the Hilltop and in the Georgetown neighborhood, they encounter and overcome roadblocks -- from negotiating with landlords to fixing their broken plumbing.
It is October 2024, and Will Keefe (SFS ’27), one of a group of seven Georgetown University sophomores, is signing his first lease for a townhouse in Georgetown — even though he won’t move into the home for another two years.
After three weeks of house tours and back-and-forth emails with landlords, Keefe and his friends have finally decided to live in a townhouse on Prospect Street during their senior year.
Keefe said he felt the significance of signing a lease for housing two years before senior year.
“We felt like it was all moving very, very quickly,” Keefe told The Hoya. “This is a decision we had to make about our housing in two years. It feels so far away. It was difficult to picture ourselves living together in two years, and we weren’t sure how that was going to work.”
Keefe and his friends were not alone in searching for senior housing as early as sophomore year. Georgetown guarantees on-campus housing for first-years, sophomores and juniors, but only 700 seniors are eligible to live on campus. Those dynamics, combined with the limited housing stock in the increasingly expensive Georgetown and Burleith neighborhoods, mean competition for housing among seniors is fierce — forcing sophomores to navigate the complexity of the housing process as they scout out rentals online, tour properties and compare prices years before their move-in date.
Maria Luisa Moen, a landlord who has rented to Georgetown students for 60 years, said the process has sped up as students look to secure housing quickly — sometimes not even touring prospective properties.
“It has become more professional,” Moen wrote to The Hoya. “Even the students do not come to inspect, accept and sign the lease with their parents or guardians. They just talk, agree, decide and sign.”
For Hoyas across all grade levels, the Georgetown housing process has presented unique challenges and hurdles.
First-years compete for Hoya Housing points to earn better slots in the housing lottery. Sophomores attempt to navigate the rental process barely a year after meeting their future senior-year roommates and bank on living with them years in advance. Juniors face uncertainty in finding reliable, on-campus housing after studying abroad, and around 1,000 seniors step into adulthood as first-time tenants.
Keefe knew his roommates were committed to living together senior year, which made the leasing process easier for the group.
“Luckily, my friends and I were able to take the jump and sign the lease,” Keefe said. “Overall, I think the process could’ve been much worse. I have heard some bad stories, and I understand that it can be very stressful at times.”
Sophomores Hunt For Townhouses
For sophomores like Keefe who seek to live off-campus senior year, the search begins when they are still sophomores.
Nate Findlay (SFS ’27) said searching for off-campus housing was frantic and confusing.
“I remember coming in freshman year and being surprised that senior housing had to be solidified by sophomore year,” Findlay told The Hoya, “I originally heard that the deadline was by the end of your sophomore year. But by December, I figured that the majority of houses were already gone. People this year are moving really fast, in comparison to previous years.”
Beyond the fast-moving process, Findlay said he struggled to find a reliable lease.
“We found out our landlord was trying to manipulate the fact that we had never signed a legal document,” Findlay said. “He was telling us lies about the legal system, and he was trying to build onto the house and not include protections for us as the tenants, cheating us out of money. He actually did not end up paying us back our whole deposit.”
Keefe said he navigated the housing race by turning to junior and senior friends who had already been through the process, asking for advice on who to contact and where to look.
“Knowing someone did help. I luckily had a lot of resources with upperclassmen who were able to direct me to landlords across Georgetown,” Keefe said. “It definitely does help to have resources because it gives you an upper hand. It is like a competition in that sense when it comes to finding the right resources.”
Some student organizations offer those resources themselves, passing down houses between members as a tradition. Singers in the Georgetown Chimes, one of Georgetown’s all-male a cappella groups, have resided in the Chimes house on Prospect Street for decades.
The rugby house, where members of the Georgetown club rugby team live and host team events, has a similar legacy, though the location changes year to year.
Jack Lonergan (CAS ’25), who rents the team’s current townhouse, said the house has fostered community as a gathering space for the team.
“From when you’re a freshman, you go to events at the Rugby House,” Lonergan told The Hoya. “So you’re used to going to houses where the majority of the tenants are people on the team. So it’s a common thing. It’s a well-trodden path, which means that, if you so choose, the idea is not foreign.”
Full Disclosure: Jack Lonergan was a sports columnist for The Hoya in the Fall 2024 semester.
Juniors Fret Housing After Study Abroad
Junior year presents a unique set of challenges regarding on-campus housing for students who choose to study abroad in their fall semester and return to campus in the spring.
This year, with an influx of 454 students returning to campus for the Spring 2025 semester and the limited housing availability because of ongoing construction, the Office of Residential Living could not fulfill all students’ rooming requests.
A university spokesperson said Residential Living could only grant a certain number of student housing holds, which would guarantee students studying abroad in the fall a slot in a housing assignment of their choice upon their return in the spring.
“Only a limited number of requests are approved, and the remaining applications are waitlisted,” a university spokesperson wrote to The Hoya.
In a Dec. 3 email to a subset of students studying abroad, Residential Living asked recipients to rank three options for their spring housing in order of preference: live in a triple in a residence hall with a third unknown person; live with your desired roommate in the same apartment, townhouse or suite but not as direct roommates; or entirely split up the group among different locations on campus.
The email gave students — studying across countries and time zones — a deadline of the same day to respond, otherwise Residential Living would automatically select the third option of splitting up housing pairs.
Mia Streitberger (CAS ’26), who studied abroad in Fall 2024, said she did not anticipate having to deal with housing confusion.
“We received those three options, all of which are obviously not ideal, and we had to respond by that evening, and all of us were abroad,” Streitberger told The Hoya. “So it was kind of a hassle trying to figure out what we were gonna do.”
Full disclosure: Mia Streitberger is a copy editing assistant at The Hoya.
Although Streitberger and her requested roommates ranked the choices by the deadline, Residential Living did not accommodate their preferences. Streitberger said she and her roommates were instead randomly matched with people.
While Streitberger ended up living with a compatible roommate, she said she still felt the housing process unfairly eliminated student choice without earlier notice.
“Coming back from abroad, it’s a little weird still being separated from people and not having chosen the housing that we’re ultimately paying for,” Streitberger said.
The spokesperson said Residential Living attempted to take into account the housing preferences of students returning from abroad for the Spring 2025 semester but was sometimes unable to grant them due to sheer demand, with far more students going abroad in the fall semester than the spring.
In Fall 2024, 454 students studied abroad, compared to just 289 students in Spring 2025.
“The University endeavors to assign students to spaces in accordance with their ranked preferences; however, due to a variety of factors, it cannot guarantee that every student receives their first choice,” the spokesperson wrote.
In contrast, legacy houses can equip students with a built-in network to find stable housing upon returning from study abroad.
Lonergan said the rugby house provides a community for residents to fall back on once they return from study abroad, with a junior moving into his house this semester as a fifth-year senior graduated and moved out.
“That’s where the community of being part of a larger club can really help,” Lonergan said. “The fifth-year moving out was a rugby player, and the guy coming back from study abroad was also a rugby player. The fact that they both had these extended networks to call on when looking for housing resources really helped them but also helped us fill a niche.”
With the New Residential Complex, located on the site of the former Henle Village, opening for the Fall 2025 semester and providing 730 bed spaces, the on-campus housing landscape could shift.
Streitberger said the New Residential Complex would relieve the housing difficulties she faced returning from study abroad.
“It’ll be much better with Henle being opened and those spots opening up for students,” Streitberger said. “This year was just tight with the way they moved things around and the lack of communication. I know that people that ended up in bad situations and really did have to switch were able to. They are able to accommodate that if you really have a need to leave.”
Seniors Move Off Campus
Senior year is the only opportunity for most students to live outside university-owned properties. The university only allows students to live off campus before that if they receive a special exemption or claim residency with family in Washington, D.C.
Lonergan said seniors navigate everything from paying rent and utilities to handling larger maintenance challenges.
“We’ve had some big problems. Our plumbing was all messed up,” Lonergan said. “Our kitchen floor and bar area got completely torn out, and new linoleum went in. But you’re growing up, you’re getting older, you’re going to need to deal with some of this real stuff.”
“While it is a major inconvenience, it’s good that you have a dry run when in college so that, when it does happen after graduation, you’re a little bit better equipped to deal with it,” he added.
Lonergan said that despite the drawbacks of being a tenant, the experience of living off campus is valuable.
“There’s some maintenance,” Lonergan said. “But it comes with a source of pride that we actually own this space.”
Lonergan said students should take initiative when looking for off-campus housing.
“Be proactive in the process,” Lonergan said. “I think our first conversations happened in sophomore fall, maybe late fall, and then we did some visits in the spring, and then we signed a lease that summer, which was relatively late.”
Findlay said his leasing process was much more challenging and uncooperative, adding that students should prioritize their well-being amid what can be a difficult process.
“Really try to protect yourself, and don’t settle for a bad lease just because you want a house,” Findlay said. “Take your Georgetown housing over a bad lease, because once you sign a lease you’re locked into that.”
Findlay also advised students to educate themselves about the leasing process and to advocate for their own best interests.
“These people know how the legal system works, even if they pretend they’re chill,” Findlay said. “Ultimately, you want to be respectful, but you also have to remember that you’re the tenant.”
“You need to know your rights,” Findlay said.