Would you recommend DAS?
Everyone of us in DAS are working together to make it affordable and as easy as possible for each of our tenants to live in DAS. We have been working for a long time to reform our housing stock. Living in a shared apartment isn’t as popular anymore among the students who are applying for an apartment. In summer 2017 there were changes in housing allowance system. These changes increased the income so the students could apply and are applying more often to individual apartments. At DAS we pursue to the demand by preparing to transit from shared apartments to studios in the near future. We will start the transition by converting shared apartments to studios in DAS Venla at the beginning of 2021. Within the next five years the plan is to carry out these renovations also in DAS Juhani, DAS Tuomas and DAS Aapo.
DAS is a non-profit actor but the economy must be balanced now and in the future. The most important indicator is the occupancy rate ie how much of our housing stock is rented and how much is vacant. Changing shared apartments into studios is aiming to rise the occupancy rate which in turn will ease the pressure to increase rents in the future.
The study methods in universities have changed because of covid-19. The hybrid way of studying may have come to stay. Some of the studies are compulsory on site and some can be done remotely. This also challenges DAS strongly. Given the potential upward pressures on housing costs in Rovaniemi generally, our future will be challenging to say the least.
But together we can cope this situation. The less empty apartments we have next year the better we will fend together.
Everyone in DAS! Let’s do what we can to help DAS and recommend and market DAS apartments to students. This way we enable an affordable and desirable home in a good location for as many people as possible now and in the future.
Lasse Kontiola
Chairman of the Board