Buy a second home in your college town — all the cool kids are doing it

Call it living in the past, these fans don't care

From left: Rod Blagojevich, diehard Chicago Cubs fan; University of North Carolina basketball player Tyler Zeller dunks during a practice. (Credit: Jason/Flickr; Official U.S. Navy Page/Flickr)
From left: Rod Blagojevich, diehard Chicago Cubs fan; University of North Carolina basketball player Tyler Zeller dunks during a practice. (Credit: Jason/Flickr; Official U.S. Navy Page/Flickr)

Reliving your glory days is back in style.

An increasing number of buyers are searching for second homes in markets close by to their alma mater — and they’re sparing no expense, as part of a growing trend brokers are calling the game-day market, according to the Wall Street Journal.

“Just in the last five or six years, we’ve seen people buying places that, except for game times, are vacant,” East Lansing-based agent Martha Bashore told the Journal. With Michigan State University, the die-hard fans who’re buying up game-day houses are coming to see the NCAA basketball team, The Spartans.

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“Spartan spirit is just savage,” Bashore continued. “I’m working with a couple from Arizona—they want to come to as many games as they can. They are just waiting for a two-bedroom condominium to pop up in this particular building, and they’ll buy it, sight unseen.”

Some buyers even redecorate their homes with team colors or attempt to tastefully display school slogans over their front doors. The difference between them and the frat bros down the street is money — alums will lay down half a million and more in some cases to get a home to their college town — and, a few decades later, they might be a little less rowdy as neighbors. [WSJ]Erin Hudson