USC Students' Horror Stories about Conquest

Geoff Rynex, a junior majoring in political science and print journalism who lives in Providence, shows his feelings of affection for each of the 7 Conquest buildings within one block of Shrine Place. Oh the monopoly...

"I have many horror stories about Conquest so bear with me. All of my roommates and I got an ambiguous email recently giving us the feeling there was a problem. So my roommate called and Conquest said we were short on the rent and said I hadn't paid. But I knew for a fact that I had given them the check at Tuscany on the same day I was there to pick up a package. So I was pretty angry after a long history of anger. They forwarded my call to some guy in India and he said I would have to send a check and pay a late fee. I told him I had given them a check and if they lost it, I was going to be pissed. So, I contacted my bank and come to find out my check had been cashed...and by Conquest! By this point, a notice of eviction letter showed up on our door. I went to talk to Conquest about it and they said they "must have put it in a different account" and asked if I had a photocopy of my check. A couple days later I sent them a copy but they never apologized nor told me it was resolved.

Oh, and then there's the laundry room. There are four washers and four dryers that are broken half the time and even when they are functional you still have to dry your clothes like three times. So one time I washed every item of clothes I had--I was wearing boxers while I was doing my laundry. After I washed them I realized none of the dryers were working so I called Conquest and they said they had to wait for the Maytag people. It was two weeks before the dryers were fixed! Then, over winter break I got an email that we couldn't use quarters any more for laundry, there was a swipe card and we had to get it refilled at Tuscany (a good 20 minute walk from my place). And they raised the price of laundry. But...they didn't fix any of the machines! So, from now on I go to Lily's (girlfriend).

O.K. so then, my roommate left for like four days with his shit plugging the toilet. So I have to plunge his shit if I want to go to the bathroom. I spent one to two hours that weekend trying to unclog the toilet so I didn't have to walk to City Park to go to the bathroom. I called Conquest and no one came until Sunday night. The maintenance guy showed up chatting with one of his friends and plunged the shit out of the toilet quite violently. When I went in later there was 4 day old water everywhere and...he walked out with my damn plunger!

The Internet goes out for days at a time. It takes days for them to respond to our calls. The roofers are working on our building right now in the middle of finals time. The walls shake at like 8 a.m. on a Saturday.

All of their resources go to Tuscany because they kiss those people's asses because of what they (Conquest) did to them. I'm sure they own copious amounts of money to them."













Heather Bitar, a junior majoring in psychology, overlooks her palatial apartment which was taken over by Conquest and renamed, Verona.

"They (Conquest) increased our rent by 200%, forcing us to leave because who can afford that? It really sucks because this all happened in February and they didn't let us renew our leases. It was so hard because I already had to find a new roommate but then I had to find a new place too.

And the thing is, I like living here. I'm being forced to leave against my will and that sucks.

Since we're now "Conquest" tenants we've requested alot of repairs because we feel like we should use them for all their worth. The sad thing is we're against the corporation of Conquest but their maintenance guys are actually pretty nice.

The worst thing I've heard about Conquest is my friend knew two football players who moved into his building and out of Conquest because they had a rat and other animal problems. Conquest is just ridiculous."







Joanna Lin, a junior majoring in American Studies and Ethnicity lives in Conquest's property, Verona. One day she came home to a flyer posted on her door (pictured right) stating Conquest had taken over her building and they were not renewing her lease. Oh...and that they were going to charge over $3200 for her apartment instead of $1450.


"This year Conquest purchased the building I currently live in. We were given very short notice about a change in management and were told if we chose to resign our lease we would be given last priority meaning existing Conquest tenants as well as new Conquest tenants would be able to try to get spaces in my apartment before I, an existing tenant, would be able to. When I brought this up with Gina Koenig, the Conquest person we were put in touch with, she didn’t seem to think that this was a problem. Her quote was, “We didn’t think any of you would want to resign your lease.” She did say once I asked her should I wish to resign my lease, that she would make a “special” appointment in the next 48 hours. So that’s very little time when most tenants have weeks if not months of forewarning when deciding to resign our lease.

We were given two days to decide to resign our lease. Also, our rent was raised by 200% so even if we wanted to resign it would have been ridiculous. We would have had to leave our apartments for two months when they were quote “luxurizing” our apartment over the summer to something completely not worth the price.

I’ve decided not to resign my lease. Since I have become a Conquest tenant over the past few months, we do feel like we aren’t first-rate Conquest tenants. They’re slow to respond to our requests and maintenance concerns and generally don’t seem to even recognize at times what building I live in. It’s been frustrating in that sense. There hasn’t been a clear turnover.

They haven’t assumed all of the responsibilities a landlord should and that our previous landlord did yet they are still collecting all of our rent money for it. "

Q & A with Gary Painter

Talk about real estate in general in the USC area. Is it getting more difficult to find housing? What do you think of Conquest Housing?

I’m not super familiar with the Conquest corporation other than the recent media reports and billboards. And of course what they’ve been doing in terms of real estate in the area. The general issue that’s been true in LA and other major metropolitan areas is that there haven’t been enough multi-family units in basically the past two decades. Because of that the prices have gone up and up as I’m sure you’re familiar. We have a desperate need in these areas to develop more housing units. Conquest as a company has decided that they want to try to capture the student housing market because of the need that exists. It’s certainly true that we need units and if they can provide that than its certainly not going to hurt students. It provides them another option. I think it could only be a good thing from an overall housing policy prospective. Um, their approaches to advertising have caused some problems at least from what I’ve heard but I haven’t seen anything myself.

Conquest bought out our apartment that was previously owned by a family, more than doubled our rent and then didn’t guarantee we’d get first dibs on our apartment next semester. How do you feel about this more than doubling of rent and do you think this is a trend that will continue? Is it normal? Will people still keep paying?

In terms of overall rents, according to the latest projection from the Casden forecast here at USC, what’s happened over the past 6, 7 years is house prices have shot up dramatically, certainly more than doubled and rents haven’t been able to go up quickly because of leases and so forth. So there’s a lot of upward pressure on rent. And the special case of doubling in such a short period, its hard to say if that is market-based or if they’re trying to exert some sort of monopoly power by buying all this student housing without actually knowing it. There’s certainly a lot of pressure on rent to go up to keep pace with the housing market. Were gonna observe for a while a period of house prices staying stable and rents skyrocketing. I don’t know if Conquest is exasperating that or if that’s just what the market is bearing right now.

With prices going up so much, it’s interesting because it seems a lot of students at USC actually own some properties around the school. They are charging their peers rent. Does this seem to be a trend?

Over the past few years a lot of people have invested a lot of money in real estate because it was a market that was doing so well. I would expect that as the market calms down, you’ll see less people investing in real estate and more people investing in the traditional stock market. It’s indicative of what happens in the market in the past.

It seems that wherever there is student or college housing there are always issues that arise over housing? Are there certain trends/issues that you have noticed have been prevalent in the USC area?

When I came to USC more than a decade ago there were less options for students near campus or downtown. I think options for students have gotten better in terms of how many different places are available. What you also see during that period, is there’s been a time of dramatic increases in prices. Students might think things are getting worse and worse. And the reality is things have gotten higher but there are more options than there used to be. When I got here there weren’t many students that lived downtown nor was it seen as viable for them. Things have gotten better and worse but different forces have caused different things.

Many parents who know their children are coming to USC, invest in houses and apartments nearby. Have you noticed an increase in parents’ investment in real estate near USC or has that been a consistent trend throughout history?

Usually only when the market is such that it makes sense from an investment standpoint. Parents are doing that because real estate has been a good investment so they’re like “Why not invest? This will help out our family as well.” It’s more indicative of it being a good investment. You won’t see it at times that housing is going down.

As someone that is knowledgeable in real estate, what would you tell a student looking for off campus housing whether in downtown, near campus or in other parts of LA? What would be the best option? Are they getting ripped off by staying near campus? Would they get a better deal if they went to West LA and commuted?

I wouldn’t tell students you should go to this place or that. It’s all part of choice. USC of course wants the neighborhood to be the best place it can be for students. It’s part of the experience at USC. Part of that is it ends up costing more. The better the area is, the more it costs. There’s no evidence that developments like Conquest Housing are deliberately gouging students. There’s just a lot of demand for this area both from students and from other people who want to live near downtown, where they work and not have to travel so much. I think that’s the reality of living in a major metropolitan area.

Q & A with Jeff Urdahl

Q: I live in Conquest and…
A: Do you enjoy it?

Well, not exactly. I have my own room now and I pay $750 a month but Conquest is charging $1600 for it next year so...
Wow…..wow. Wow.

So since USC supports Conquest...
No….

Doesn’t USC suggest Conquest on its website?
No. No more than any other landlord.

What does TrojanHousing support as non-university housing options if you do not get guaranteed university housing?
On our website, there’s a link to a site called Housing4students.com And in that Web site, which is run by a third party vendor, at one time there were 340 plus properties…I don’t know the number now. They do a good job keeping up on vacancies. It’s more, “These are all the different apartments that are available in the area that we know of.” It’s not that we’re approving any particular project management company. They all get a list there unless we find out something is unethical or disreputable or illegal. We don’t have any direct control over landlords. But we can go to the third party vendor and say “Look, we’ve heard complaints about this landlord. We want you to investigate it.” And they’ll take on the investigation for us. If they find they have a history of complaints from students they’ll remove the listing. But I don’t know how much it hurts the landlord. We don’t charge the landlords to list. We want as many listings for students as possible. Given the occupancy in this area and throughout Southern California most landlords aren’t going to pay a lot for a listing. The demand side is so strong throughout So Cal it is to their advantage.

Personally, how do you feel about Conquest housing? Has that opinion changed since the recent controversy surrounding Gateway and their feelings of it?
I have mixed feelings about Conquest. Clearly, a fact that they have a large number of beds serves the student population and helps them out. Whether that same number of beds would be there if they weren’t in the market, I don’t know if I have a sense of that. Someone else may be there to fill that. I’m not particularly pleased with the advertising campaign that they had out there (pictured right) about “Get lucky every night at Conquest Housing” or Tuscany or whatever it was. I just think that’s poor taste. I think students are smarter than that. I don’t think they make where they’re going to live decision based on their libido. They’re more interested in a safe, clean, well-run fairly-priced location. Some of that is subjective—what is fairly priced. As private business people there’s really not much that constrains them from charging whatever the market will bear. I don’t necessarily have to like that but that is the reality of our culture.

Well you answered my question concerning the risqué ads on billboards and on Facebook. Which are still floating around the Internet…
I was unaware of that.

Because Conquest is on the USC website and students do hear about it through USC, do you still think its O.K. that you still put them on there even though they’re putting out these risqué ads and also on the Conquest Web site they tell you to bring a good ID to Traddies, meaning bring a fake ID. Is this something USC has tried to ignore?

Because it’s a little more on the behavioral side of things I would probably defer to Student Affairs to respond to that. I don’t think it’s a good idea. I don’t think the university wants students with a fake ID going to Traditions and I think it’s a bad piece of advice, given that conceivably your academic career could be jeopardized if you’re caught and you run afoul of the university policies. That’s not a healthy position to be in. That strikes me as…I can’t imagine having a beer is really worth that. Um, so no I’m not particularly enamored at...I think that’s unfortunate that people take that approach to advertising.

But would there ever be something they would do that would officially force USC to cut its ties to Conquest or because you do want housing for students you have to overlook the behavioral stuff?

Well…it’s not overlook. At some point, very much like when it came to some of the ads on the billboards, the university precluded Conquest from advertising in the D.T. (Daily Trojan) and took some other steps to remove them. I could see where it could potentially come to that down the line again. I’m sure that Conquest’s approach to the Gateway project has not bedeared them to the university.

About Gateway…

Gateway is a project being developed by Urban Partners. And the university is supportive of it from the standpoint that there’s a need for student housing in the area. We’re hearing from students there’s a need. And from the surrounding community that they’re not really pleased that there’s a gentrification going on about the surrounding community. And you can’t solve those two problems without creating more student housing somewhere. The nice thing about Gateway from a university perspective is that if we take university resources to develop student housing then there’s less resources to build administrative buildings or research buildings or academic buildings. So housing doesn’t stand alone from the university. When we use money to build more housing from the university funds then there’s less to use for something else. So by having a third party developer create something adjacent to the campus and who appears to be willing to work with the campus in terms of architectural style and some of those things. Then there could be a good synergy there.

So it is completely separate from the university. Like a Conquest, only Urban Partners?
It will be non-university housing. I think that there would be enough ties there that we’d have to respect their requirement to returning a reasonable profit. I think because of the relationship there I think it would be more collaborative in terms of pricing and how things happened.

If someone came to you looking for off-campus housing what would you give them as advice? What would you tell them?
Well, certainly, we’d tell them they’re guaranteed university housing as a freshman and sophomore but beyond that if someone said “I don’t want to live in university housing, where should I look?” we would give them the gamut. Take a look at the Web site. Mention some of the standard property sites out there—Nupac, Conquest, but we always include in that, because we know some students are interested, downtown locations. There are four or five primary locations students live in downtown— Promenade, Metropolitan, Medici and the Grand. Those are the big ones downtown. And we know some students like it. We can watch the DASH every morning and see students getting on and off. My sense is that’s an older student population. Is that right?

I think it’s anyone that’s willing to commute. There are still some students who like the idea of walking to campus.
I absolutely agree with you. I think the whole concept of being able to walk or ride your bike to campus is a real advantage. And I think the campus has more residential life and more activities going on that make this much more residential in nature than it was even 5 or 10 years ago. I think we’re much more residential in nature than people give us credit for. When you take into account the whole north campus area is all students. You can’t not call us a residential campus.

O.K. Let’s end with Conquest. If you had a son or daughter that wanted to live in Conquest how would you feel about it?
I have a son who goes to school here. He’s a sophomore this year. And I have a daughter who’s gonna be a freshman next year. So it’s a real question. I suspect my son or daughter could get university housing. They still have to pay for it but they could probably get it. I would ask them to make a real hard decision on that. I don’t know if I would absolutely preclude it because part of my responsibility as a parent is to let them make some decisions. But I would counsel them to look real hard at that. Beyond that, if he (my son) said he wanted to live in Tuscany or some other Conquest property I would probably say you need to look real hard at that. Given that he is required to pay for his own room and board at this point in his life, that decision falls to him. My daughter will be guaranteed for two years. And who knows, in two years time maybe Gateway will be here. As a parent and seeing those ads, that would cause me to recommend some other location. I just don’t find that an appropriate way to try and attract a population to your facility.

The “Bring the ID”…
I haven’t seen that. So I can’t comment on that.

If there are students really researching Conquest they will scroll down and see that…
That is unfortunate. And on that same token you would have to ask Conquest how they feel about that because they require IDs to get in and out of their buildings. They have a swipe system in Tuscany. How would they feel if someone was using a fake swipe over there? I’d suspect they’d be real upset about it.