Question: What do you get when you put a Brigham Young University graduate from the '70s into almost any apartment complex in Provo?
Answer: A very, very surprised person."Oh really? Boy I went (to BYU) at the wrong time," said BYU graduate Robin Fehlman after being told about some of the amenities apartment owners offer today. Fehlman graduated in 1974.
In the '70s and early '80s, dishwashers, garbage disposals, microwaves and swimming pools were the big attractions at student apartments. Today those items are standard at most apartments.
So students look for other amenities such as a Jacuzzi, a recreation room, a computer room and a weight room before they sign on the dotted line.
"I wish they had those (amenities) when I went to school," said Donetta Knight, manager of Carriage Cove. "Our housing is still reasonable for what (our tenants) get."
That's an understatement. The $205-a-month Carriage Cove apartments have more luxuries than any student apartment complex in Provo, according to Knight. It offers private rooms, dishwashers, air conditioning, a swimming pool, a Jacuzzi, cable TV, shuttle buses, a recreation room, a game room, a weight room, a piano room, sand volleyball courts, satellite TV and aerobic courses.
In order to keep up with the newer complexes, older apartment complexes are remodeling or adding on to offer more amenities to their tenants.
"In some settings you could sit back and say `We're older (apartments),"' said Darrel Christensen, property manager for Raintree Apartments, one of the largest complexes in Provo. "But somewhere down the road we could lose out."
The Raintree, which is 14 years old, offers a swimming pool, a Jacuzzi, air conditioning, cable TV, shuttle bus, volleyball court, a game room and computer room. Most of those amenities were added after the complex was built.
"When we put in a Jacuzzi, that was a step to add something that other apartments were doing," Christensen said. "As people come through, they ask `Do you have this or that' and that gets us thinking."
Christensen has been a property manager since 1983. He said back then, apartment complexes rarely offered the amount of amenities they do today.
It's a situation that has evolved over time.
- In the 70s, the biggest draw was a swimming pool, dishwashers and microwaves. The only apartments that offered those were generally newer.
- In the 80s, Jacuzzis were the big thing. Apartment complexes began to be divided into `trendy' and `basic.' The basic ones offered such things as a swimming pool, a Jacuzzi and some private bedrooms while the trendy ones supplied those things plus weight rooms, game rooms, tennis courts and cable TV.
-Today, the idea of trendy and basic may be on its way out the door. With more and more apartment complexes offering the same kinds of amenities, it's hard to tell which are `trendy' and which are `basic'. Today's newest luxuries include private rooms, Jacuzzi bathtubs and fireplaces.
Another thing that keeps the apartment market hopping is low rent. Due to the high student population in Provo and Orem, there's a great demand for housing.
To answer that demand, apartment complexes are multiplying faster than rabbits. Any economics major could tell you that if the supply exceeds the demand, prices fall.
Since the beginning of the year, 31 building permits - for a total of 279 units - have been issued in Provo for multiple-family dwellings.
King Henry Apartments is in the process of adding 36 apartments onto its existing 90 units. That will bring their total bedroom count to 180. The $200-a-month apartments, which offer a recreation center, a pool and Jacuzzi, a game room, a lit volleyball court and a basketball court, are already fully rented.
The combination of the large number of apartments in Provo and the amenities they offer may cause some problems.
"I hope that we don't over do it again and build until we've got so many that there is a glut in the market," said Greg Sumner, a general contractor in Provo. "It's almost scary."
Others worry about the number of amenities each complex offers.
"I feel overall as a market, we kind of set ourselves up for a rough life," Christensen said. He said by adding more and more amenities, apartment owners may have a hard time keeping up with each other.
"Each one of the (amenities) that comes along is a big deal," he said. "But by tommorrow it tapers off."
However, most apartment owners agree that the amenities are offered with the tenants in mind.
"We ought to be concentrating on being a better housing complex, not on having a better computer lab," Christensen said.