Student Housing: Leasing by the Bed, Academic Terms, Pre-Leasing and Roommate Matching

Lease student housing by the bed in Seayora — academic terms, bed rates and equal monthly installments, holds for applicants, a pre-leasing board with pace and last-term comparison, returning residents, parent guarantors and opt-in roommate matching.

Lease units by the bed for an academic term: bed spaces and their rates, holds for applicants, a pre-leasing board for each term, returning residents and opt-in roommate matching.

It is for a landlord or a property management company that leases to students. On the website it is under Portfolio → Student housing; on the iPhone and Android apps it is in the Tools hub under Student housing — Pre-leasing, Bed holds, Returning residents, Roommate groups, Student units, Student terms and Student communities — and Pre-leasing is also in the Portfolio tab. A student sees their own side as Student housing on the website, and as My bed, Held for me, Roommate matching, Roommate matches and Roommate requests in the apps.

Each bed is its own lease with its own resident. Residents of a unit are not responsible for each other’s rent.

Student leases are ordinary leases. Seayora keeps the record and the arithmetic; the lease and your local law decide what applies.

Communities and terms

A community is the group of units you lease to students — usually one building or one complex near a school. Each community has its own terms, its own settings and its own pre-leasing goal.

A term is the dates a bed is leased for. Give it a name, a kind, a start and an end, and the day pre-leasing opens. Once a bed is held or a lease is drafted for a term, its dates stay: a signed lease quotes them.

A term is between 28 days and 18 months long.

Units leased by the bed

Add a unit to a community to lease it by the bed. Give the number of beds and Seayora names them Bedroom A, Bedroom B and so on; rename them, mark a private bathroom or furnishing, or add a bed later. Adding a unit changes nothing about its listing or its owner of record.

A bed can be taken out of service with a reason — it is then not counted and not offered. A bed named in a lease stays on the record; a unit whose beds have been leased cannot be removed from the community.

A family or a group still living in a unit on an ordinary lease is never double-booked: a whole-unit lease covers every bed for its dates.

Rates and installments

Each bed has a monthly rate for each term, and optionally a deposit. Set one bed at a time, or one rate for a whole unit or community at once — optionally only the beds that have none yet, or one kind of space.

A bed’s rent is paid in equal monthly installments across the term — the first at move-in, then on the installment day each month. Installments are not prorated.

Per-semester and paid-in-full billing are not offered: the lease states rent by the month, and the billing follows the lease.

The number of installments is worked out by the same calendar the billing uses: a term from mid-August to the end of July is 12 installments — the first at move-in, then on the 1st of each month.

The pre-leasing board

For each term the board shows every bed and what it is for that term, worked out from the leases, holds and renewal offers on it each time you look — so it can never disagree with a lease the moment somebody signs it.

Above the beds: how many are leased against the community’s goal, how many leases were signed each of the last eight weeks, and where the previous term of the same kind stood the same number of days before it started. When there is nothing honest to compare with — a first term, or one with no rates on record — it says so rather than showing a zero.

Holding a bed for an applicant

An applicant applies to a unit the ordinary way. Hold one of its beds for them for a term and the bed is theirs while you finish screening — the rate they were quoted is kept even if you change the bed’s rate later. They are emailed which bed, the dates, the installments and until when it is held.

A hold keeps a bed for one applicant while you finish screening and draft the lease. It lapses on its own if no lease is drafted in time. A hold lasts 72 hours unless the community says otherwise, can be extended, and can be released at any time.

A hold is not a lease and moves no money. If you also want a holding deposit, ask for one on the same application.

Drafting the bed lease

Drafting the lease from an applicant with a held bed uses that bed’s rate, the term’s dates and equal monthly installments, and adds an Individual Bed Space Addendum that names the bed.

Approve the applicant the usual way. A unit leased by the bed refuses a lease for an applicant with no held bed — one resident must never sign for every bedroom. The lease runs the term’s dates and its rent is the bed’s rate; a start date, due day or proration choice you type is replaced, and Seayora says which. A rent or deposit you type on purpose is kept.

The Individual Bed Space Addendum is added to the lease document whatever template you use. It names the bed and its unit, says each resident holds their own lease and is not responsible for another’s rent, and states the installments exactly as they will be billed.

Leasing one bed does not mark the whole unit rented. The unit stays advertised while any bed is free for a term open for leasing, and stops being advertised once every bed is leased, held or out of service.

Parents and other guarantors

Parents and other guarantors join through the application (Applying together) or are named when the lease is drafted, and sign the lease.

A community can require a guarantor: the lease is then refused until a guarantor has joined the application or is named when you draft it.

Returning residents

A resident whose lease ends before the next term can be offered the same bed through a renewal offer — the renewal keeps the bed.

For a coming term, Returning residents lists everybody whose bed lease ends before it starts and what each has planned: a lease on a bed for the term, a renewal offer, a bed held for them, or no plan yet. Offer this bed for the term sends a renewal offer at the bed’s rate for the term, with the term’s dates — through Renewals, so the resident answers it where they answer any renewal. A resident moving to a different bed applies to that unit like anyone.

Roommate matching

Roommate matching is opt-in. A resident sees other opted-in residents of the same community and term by first name and their answers — never an email address — and either can ask to room together.

It is off until you switch it on for a community. Then anybody who has applied to one of its units, has a bed held for a term or leases a bed in it can take part for that term — and nobody else can.

The questions are about habits only. Nothing asks about sex or gender, sexual orientation, race, national origin, religion, disability, age or family status, and profiles may not state a preference by any of them.

For each question a resident can say how much it matters to them; an answer that matters a lot counts double. Two people are compared only on the questions both answered, and fewer than three in common is no score at all. "It varies" and "Either is fine" match anything.

A match score compares answers to the same questions. It is not a promise about how two people will get on.

Either person can ask the other to room together, with a short note. A request is answered within 14 days or it expires. Once both agree they are roommates and can message each other in Seayora — still by first name, never by address. Agreed pairs join into groups, up to the number of beds in the community’s largest unit.

Roommate profiles can describe your habits, not who you would like to live with by sex, gender, sexual orientation, race, national origin, religion, age or disability. Take that part out and save again.

You see roommate groups once both residents have agreed. You never see anybody’s answers or pending requests.

Roommate profiles and requests for a term are deleted 90 days after the term ends, and at once when somebody deletes their own profile or their account.

The listing

A published listing for a unit leased by the bed shows, for each term open for leasing, how many beds are free and from what monthly installment, and each bed’s kind of space. It never shows who lives there.

Settings

Each community has its own settings.

For students

Your bed, your term and your installments — and roommate matching when your community offers it.

Student housing shows your bed, its term and your installments, a bed being held for you and until when, and — where your community offers it — roommate matching: answer the questions, choose whether others can see you, look at your matches and ask, accept or decline. You can hide your profile or delete it at any time.

Your team

On a management company’s team, student housing follows the Leases permission, and a member assigned to some buildings sees only those. A student’s own Student housing is theirs whatever their employer sets.

Asking your assistant

Seayora’s connector for Claude and ChatGPT can tell you where pre-leasing stands for each community and term, list the beds of one term with their states, and list the residents who have not said what they will do next term. A student can ask about their own bed and installments. The connector cannot hold a bed, draft a lease or offer a renewal — each is a named person’s act on somebody’s housing — and it sees nothing about roommate matching.

Related features and guides

• Applying Together: Co-Applicants and Guarantors — Documentation. Roommates, partners and guarantors apply for one home together: the lead invites them by email, each accepts from their own account and is screened as themselves, and the approved household signs the lease.
• Agents: a Leasing Agent and a Renewals Agent That Work Inside Your Limits — Documentation. Answer prospects at any hour, follow up, remind applicants and ask residents about renewing — with every message disclosed, every act logged and anything sent in chat undoable.
• Announcements, Packages & Amenities — Documentation. Post notices to residents, log deliveries so residents know where to find them, let residents book shared spaces, and give them a board and a directory of their own.
• Document Storage & Templates — Feature. Store leases, addenda, inspection photos, receipts, and templates securely, with the right people able to reach the right documents at any time.
• Notifications: In-App, Email, Push & SMS — Feature. In-app, email, push, and opt-in SMS notifications, with per-property and per-role settings so managing fifty units does not mean fifty times the noise.
• Owner Portals & Reporting — Feature. Owner portals and multi-property accounting let property owners see performance and financials for their assets without a monthly email from you.

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