In today’s issue, we featured a story about the changing face of rental-property ownership in the city of Binghamton. More and more outsiders are buying up houses to rent to Binghamton University students — and some of them are other BU students.

This trend has the potential to turn Binghamton into even more of a renter’s market than it already is. Rents are still ridiculously low, averaging somewhere in the area of a little below $300 per month. Of course, the quality of this dirt-cheap living space varies widely, with houses ranging in condition from immaculate to degenerate. And that was all you got.

But the era of getting no more than a crumbling old house with bad wiring and a family of squirrels living in the rafters might very well be on its way out. With the influx of new ownership may come new ideas about what the very concept of student housing is.

University Plaza and on-campus housing may be supremely overpriced, but they’ve got fringe benefits that many students go for. University Plaza, for instance, has a gym, a tanning salon and computer and printing equipment. The new crop of student landlords — many of them fresh out of BU’s School of Management or similar programs elsewhere — would be savvy to note that after price, offering similar services is the best way to compete with the giants.

And already, as our story reports, at least one pair of student landlords has said they’re going to do just that: they want to install a weight room in the basement of one of their houses. The potential for built-in recreation rooms of all kinds is only limited by the design of a house — and, of course, by its owner’s capital.

This, of course, is all contingent upon new landlords, be they students or otherwise, not taking their responsibility lightly. Owning rental property isn’t just another SOM project — a landlord deals with the money, homes and lives of real people in real communities. An improperly maintained house can become a deathtrap with one ill-timed spark, or garner the ire of an entire neighborhood. Fixtures break, toilets clog — and someone has to fix them. And keep in mind: if the venture doesn’t prove profitable, any problems you cause or fail to address will linger long after you’re gone.

So, new property owners, welcome to Binghamton. The future of the market is in your hands. Depending on how you equip and manage your properties, you can either turn the student-housing market on its ear — for the benefit of both landlord and tenant — or you can facilitate its move closer to the toilet.

Try not to flush.