Despite increasing enrollment at the University of Michigan, on-campus housing has not kept up with student demand, prompting many students to seek housing off campus. In 2021, Ann Arbor City Council updated the Early Leasing Ordinance so that landlords could not show properties to prospective tenants, or sign leases with tenants, more than 150 days before the end of the current lease. In the years since, tenants have reported landlords charging tenants waitlist fees to reserve apartments over 150 days before the current tenants’ lease ends.
Zackariah Farah, chair of the Renters Commission and member of the Ann Arbor Tenants Union, told The Michigan Daily that these fees hinder students’ ability to apply for housing.
“I don’t know how people can afford to apply at one place,” Farah said. “I’ve never seen anything like this before. Many lawyers I talked to have never seen this, legislators have never seen this.”
In March 2024, City Council updated Housing Code 8:530 of Chapter 105 of the Early Leasing Ordinance to close certain loopholes within the housing code, but did not eliminate waitlist fees.
According to AATU, Prime Student Housing Inc, charged waitlist fees of nearly $7,000 to reserve an apartment for the 2024-25 school year, which would only be refunded if the desired apartment became unavailable. If the potential tenants were offered a lease that they did not sign within three days, Prime would keep their down payment as damages.
Another company, Campus Management, Inc., charged $6,745 to join the waitlist, which was not binding for the tenants, according to the AATU. The AATU received photos of the contracts — which both companies referred to as Option Agreements — via email from tenants, according to an email from Farah. Representatives for Campus Management and Prime Student Housing declined to comment for this article.
Farah said landlords often claim there are no waitlist fees, but simply conceal the fee with new terms. These fees for a potential opportunity to sign a lease come in addition to other hidden fees, including application fees, administration fees and no-hassle fees.
“And a lot of landlords are saying ‘No, we don’t have waitlist fees. We have reservation fees or holding fees or option fees,’” Farah said. “You know, they come up with new terms and to describe what, in effect, is a waitlist.”
In an interview with The Daily, LSA freshman McKenzie Ennis described her experience when a potential landlord attempted to charge her and four roommates $400 each, a total of $2,000, to join a waitlist. Even unavailable units may be listed by landlords, further confusing students seeking a place to live.
“All housing is so limited,” Ennis said. “Even if you found something on a website, you have to email somebody to see if it’s actually available, or go to the current leaseholders and ask them if it was available. So we were left to our own devices, and it’s shitty, it’s not good, it was so stressful.”
City Councilmember Travis Radina, D-Ward 3, expressed his disdain for these junk fees in an email to The Daily. Radina wrote that the Renters Commission is working on an ordinance meant to target not only waitlist fees, but also all other hidden fees, to promote transparency for prospective tenants. The goal is to make the renting market more affordable by ensuring renters are better informed when comparing their potential homes.
“(I) am working with CM Harrison, Renters Commissioners and City Staff/Attorneys to draft an ordinance to address waitlist and other predatory rental junk fees, which we hope will be ready for introduction soon,” Radina wrote.
Daily Staff Reporter Mikaela Lewis can be reached at mikaelal@umich.edu.