Just in time for the 2008 summer rental market, Century 21 NY Metro has formed a marketing partnership to take advantage of an important seasonal demographic shift in the city: the arrival of college graduates.
Century 21 NY Metro has teamed up with UrbanGradRealty, a real estate brokerage company that targets soon-to-be graduates with their eyes on New York. UrbanGradRealty will be sharing its database of leads with C21 NY Metro, allowing the brokerage to better target graduating seniors nationwide. UrbanGradRealty says it will benefit from association with the well-known Century 21 franchise name.
UrbanGradRealty has ad campaigns at over 175 college campuses across the U.S., although company founder Jonathan Iger said a large focus goes toward the universities that output the highest-paid grads. Ivy League schools, George Washington, Georgetown, Duke, and Syracuse are important targets.
And in keeping with the times, UrbanGradRealty is utilizing an increasingly effective medium for reaching America’s youth: social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. College students spend an average of 21 minutes per day on such sites, according to a study cited by Century 21 NY Metro president Mike Simon.
Iger said new grads are now typically renting in the low $2,000s per month for a one-bedroom to over $5,000 per month for a three- or four-bedroom. But extravagant sums, even for fresh grads, aren’t totally unheard of. “We just rented to a recent grad that’s paying $12,200 per month,” Iger said. “Now he either has a really nice job, or really nice parents. But I’m going with the parents.”