Marcia Hunter
LSU Health Shreveport has worked with Crew Innovations, Inc., to develop a private off-campus listing service to help LSU Health Shreveport students, faculty, staff, alumni and their families find housing in the Shreveport-Bossier area. The new service, called Real Estate With Honors, launches today at www.LSUHealthShreveportRealEstateWithHonors.com.
"LSU Health Shreveport is excited to use this new system to help make the search for off-campus housing easy, fun and informative," said Marcia Hunter, MS, School of Allied Health Professions Assistant Dean for Student Affairs. "Real Estate With Honors will help students and staff learn about living off campus, save time in their property search and make the overall process of finding housing less stressful."
To better meet the diverse housing needs of the LSU Health community, Real Estate With Honors will include a wide variety of property types, locations, price ranges and sizes. Housing options from all across the Shreveport metro, including apartment complexes, houses for sale and rent, condos, and even short-term furnished housing will be located on one website.
"Most students cannot make several trips to Shreveport looking for housing," said Hunter. "These students, especially international students and students who aren’t familiar with our local area, need a good system to search and sort off-campus listings by price, availability, distance to campus and number of bedrooms."
The service also lets users inquire about listings and schedule showings through web-based forms. Additional state-of-the-art technology will provide bird's-eye views and 3D mapping tools to give the user detailed impressions of each property. The website will include educational information for first-time buyers and renters, such as off-campus safety and crime prevention articles and a real estate education blog. Links to Shreveport Police Department crime statistics, U.S. Census Bureau demographic data and Shreveport-area travel and tourism also will be included.
About Crew Innovations
Crew Innovations specializes in developing and managing off-campus housing listing services for academic health science centers across the U.S. "Our goal is to help new students and staff be more successful by taking away some of the anxiety and hassle required to find housing in Shreveport," said David Nelson, president of Crew Innovations, Inc. "The online property displays will include photos, detailed descriptions of properties and their amenities and contact information. Users can even e-mail listings to parents or spouses for their input before renting or buying.”
The system allows prospective renters and buyers to gather a wide variety of information, such as property condition, accessibility, distance to campus, parking, one-way streets, and even potential traffic noise, Nelson said.
Real Estate With Honors Details
Real Estate With Honors is a private listing service, Nelson said. Real estate professionals, property managers, developers and individual owners who choose to promote their listings and contact information on the site must first meet certain qualifications. These qualifications will include an application, due diligence, reference checks and a personal interview on campus.
Those who are accepted as participants will load and manage their own listings and pay an annual fee to Crew Innovations, Inc. to help defray the cost of the service. A portion of the listing service revenue will fund LSU Health Shreveport events and programs such as Relocation Fairs, Safe Night Out events, educational workshops and campus safety presentations.
Specter stressed that use of the Real Estate With Honors Web site will be free to anyone searching for properties to rent or buy. The service will replace the Housing and Apartment list previously provided by LSU Health Shreveport.