When Ron Kutas graduates from Binghamton University this May, he won’t be using his degree in computer science to make a living.

He has instead bought two houses — and is considering a third — and will take over as landlord to some of his former classmates living on Binghamton’s West Side.

Kutas isn’t the only student trying to tap into what real estate agents, landlords and prospective buyers consider one of Binghamton’s most valuable resources: affordable, convenient property for renting to BU students.

It’s no secret that Binghamton is an affordable place to live. According to a fall 2005 study by the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the median value of a house in 2004 in Binghamton was $93,000 — 60 percent below the national average. And an article published in The New York Times in October 2005 named Binghamton as one of the “last true bargains in America,” and a place “the housing boom forgot.”

But the amnesia appears to be lifting. According to the NAR, area prices have risen 25 percent over the last three years. And Shirley Woodruff, the treasurer of the Landlords Association of Broome County and co-owner of B&W Properties, has observed what she estimates to be an even greater increase — perhaps as much as 50 percent — over the past five years. And the center of the buy-up boom is the city’s West Side, where students are most heavily concentrated.

“Green lights are going off: ‘Come to Binghamton, the houses are cheap,’” she said. “And they are certainly cheap.”

Another newcomer to the Binghamton real estate market, Richard Kohn, a student at the State University of New York at Fredonia, said that he was attracted to the low prices for housing and the consistent income that he predicted would come from the investment.

“That’s a market that never dies,” he said.

SUPPLY AND DEMANDS

Local real estate agent John Burns, whose office is on the Vestal Parkway, said the trend raises questions about the growing need for tenants versus the stable need for landlords.

“It’s all supply and demand,” said Burns. “There is no change in the demand in housing, the demand for landlords is not changing. But more people are looking for tenants. That’s when the investment becomes speculative.”

Michael J. Danaher Jr., the assistant attorney general for public advocacy and consumer protection in the Binghamton regional office, said that this trend could lower prices if landlords’ demand for tenants grows enough.

“It’s possible if it’s a trend, that it could result in reduced rents if landlords get a glut of rental property,” he said.

And for new property owners, making Binghamton properties the right place at the right price for students isn’t as simple as it may seem.

“Hopefully they [landlords] will be sensible enough not to price themselves over the market,” Woodruff said. “SUNY students know what they’re looking for.”

And students don’t want deathtraps.

According to Amy Shapiro, of Binghamton’s West Side Neighborhood Association, some single-family homes on the West Side have been converted for multiple-student use without proper inspection. And, in older houses, this could mean serious safety issues, like increased risk of electrical and other fires.

“You can’t just buy a piece of junk and rent it out,” Burns said. “What investors have to realize is that students are selective and sophisticated, and their parents are sophisticated.”

Even if a property is in top shape, keeping it that way is a big job, especially for student landlords who may not even stay in the area. Burns noted that while BU students and their parents might be at an advantage in the business because they have some degree of representation in the area, having a landlord who isn’t local could be a concern for tenants.

Kutas, who is planning on staying in the area for a few years after he graduates and then selling the property when it becomes advantageous, said that he would hire someone to manage the property when he moves.

“I’d think that some of them are relying on local management businesses,” Burns said. “They’d be private managers, probably not large-scale.”

Kohn, the SUNY Fredonia student turned landlord, and his business partner Max Krivitski, a finance student at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, will likely be hiring a property manager. The manager would get 10 percent of income from the property to take care of any problems and tenant concerns, because it wouldn’t be feasible for Kohn and Krivitski to supervise from hundreds of miles away.

“We can’t be traveling four hours every time something needs to be done,” Kohn said.

Another reason to get a good local property manager is that landlords who are unfamiliar with Binghamton real estate politics — and those of the West Side in particular — could find themselves unknowingly violating some of the city’s zoning laws and inspection codes.

The West Side Neighborhood Association’s Shapiro is concerned that many students and landlords are unaware of the city’s zoning ordinances, which mandate that only single-family homes are permissible in certain areas of Binghamton’s West Side designated “R-1” zones. The issue of R-1 zoning made headlines in 2000 when two dozen students were evicted from their homes because they were living in an R-1 zone, between Beethoven and Chestnut Streets, on Leroy Street, Bennett Avenue and College Street.

“I must admit that I’m quite ignorant about that,” Kohn said of the ordinance.

A MATTER OF MARKETING

Politics aside, students renting to other students still have to contend with the basic problem of how and where to find tenants.

“We got into the game pretty late,” Kohn said. “Standard forms of marketing are not proving effective, so we’ve had to come up with a more ambitious marketing plan.”

“There’s definitely a lot of supply,” Krivitski said. “We’re looking to differentiate ourselves in terms of quality and create a submarket: a small quality market.”

He and Krivitski say they’re trying to be more innovative in terms of both property ownership and tenant acquisition. They said that they would improve the appearances of their homes and add amenities like weight rooms and laundry machines.

Even with their plans, the difficulty of finding interested renters is already taking its toll. In order to attract potential renters, they’ve resorted to paying $500 to whomever can find tenants for their Walnut Street and Jerome Avenue properties.

This dilemma is partly why, Woodruff said, the goal for many of these entrepreneurs is to find realty that is already being successfully rented and managed.

“These are people who are anxious to find houses that already have leases and people interested in renting,” she said. “It’s great for someone who’s coming in who doesn’t know the market.”