Done paying $800 a night for game weekends? ND alumni are buying instead.
You've been attending Notre Dame home games for years. You've watched hotel prices double, then double again. At some point the math changes — and a lot of alumni are realizing it's changed for them.
You open the hotel booking app. You type in the date of the first home game. You already know what you're about to see, but you look anyway.
The Morris Inn: $689/night. The Embassy Suites: $542/night. Something you've never heard of, twelve miles from campus, with a two-star rating and a free breakfast that probably includes a waffle iron: $310/night.
You close the app. You'll deal with it later. You always deal with it later. And every year, "later" costs more than the year before.
I'm Tim Vicsik with Trueblood Real Estate, and I've been working in the Notre Dame area market long enough to watch this pattern repeat itself a few thousand times. Alumni who love Notre Dame football — truly love it, the kind where they've attended games for ten or fifteen years running — reach a moment where the hotel math just stops making sense. This post is for those alumni. It's the conversation a lot of them wish they'd had sooner.
What I want to show you is something simple: the money you've been sending to South Bend hotels and short-term rental platforms on game weekends is real money. Over any meaningful timeframe, it's enough money to have become the foundation of a very different strategy — one where you own your place near campus instead of renting someone else's.
The lifetime hotel bill: let's actually add this up
Most alumni don't think about game-weekend hotel costs on an annual basis, let alone a cumulative one. Let's fix that. The assumptions below are conservative — we're using a modest 4 games attended per season, a two-night stay each weekend (Friday and Saturday), and a blended nightly rate that reflects what a decent hotel within reasonable distance of campus charges on game weekends. Not the bargain-bin option thirty miles away. Not the premium suite with stadium views. Just a normal, comfortable hotel stay for two adults.
Over twenty years of attending Notre Dame home games, a loyal alumni couple can easily spend $100,000 or more on hotel and short-term rental costs alone. That number doesn't include restaurant tabs, parking, last-minute travel costs when you're booking late, or the premium you pay during playoff runs and rivalry games. It's just the room.
And at the end of those twenty years, you own nothing. You have receipts and memories, but no asset.
What the alternative actually looks like
The alumni I work with who've made the purchase don't describe it as a financial decision, even though the financial case is airtight. They describe it as a quality-of-life decision that happened to also be financially smart. Here's what it actually means in practice.
The part most alumni haven't considered: you can rent it when you're not there
Owning near Notre Dame Stadium doesn't mean the property sits vacant for the 51 weekends a year you're not in South Bend. It means you have an asset in one of the most consistently in-demand short-term rental markets in the Midwest.
Notre Dame's home football schedule — typically seven games per regular season — creates demand spikes that are unlike anything in the local market. According to AirDNA, short-term rental bookings near South Bend nearly doubled on home game weekends in 2025, with overall demand up 63% year-over-year during football season. Alumni who own near campus and rent out during away weekends, bowl season, and non-football events routinely offset a significant portion of their annual carrying cost.
That last line matters: always verify STR permissions before purchase. Some condo associations near Notre Dame restrict short-term rentals, minimum lease terms, or occupancy. I pull the HOA documents on every property my buyers consider — the rental rules are buried in the fine print and they vary enormously building to building. A unit that appears perfect for the game-day rental strategy can be completely wrong for it if the HOA prohibits STRs. This is one of the most important reasons to work with someone who knows these specific buildings.
For properties that do allow it, the Notre Dame game-day rental market is one of the most reliable STR income sources in the Midwest. Demand doesn't fluctuate with the broader economy the way vacation markets do. Notre Dame fans show up regardless.
Renting vs. owning near Notre Dame Stadium — the full picture
The objections I hear most — and what I actually think
During Notre Dame's December 2024 College Football Playoff home game, South Bend hotels sold out completely and Airbnbs near campus hit $3,500+ per night. Alumni who owned near campus either stayed in their own place — priceless — or rented it out for what amounted to several months of mortgage payments in a single weekend. That kind of asymmetric upside doesn't exist when you're renting.
What to look for as an alumni buyer specifically
Alumni buyers have different priorities than the ND parent buyers I wrote about in earlier posts. Here's what matters most for the game-day ownership use case:
Walking distance to Notre Dame Stadium is worth a significant premium. The difference between a 5-minute walk and a 20-minute drive on game day is enormous — both for your personal experience and for your short-term rental rates. Near-campus properties command $1,500–$2,400 per game weekend on STR platforms. Properties two miles away command $800–$1,200. That gap compounds over a football season.
STR-permissive HOA rules are non-negotiable if rental income is part of your model. I cannot overstate how much this matters. Before you make an offer on anything, I pull the HOA documents. Certain buildings near Eddy Street Commons have more STR-friendly policies than others. This is local knowledge that saves buyers from expensive mistakes.
Parking access matters. On game day, South Bend traffic is genuinely challenging. A property with dedicated parking — or that's close enough to walk from everywhere — is worth more than one that requires driving. Your guests will care about this too if you're renting it out.
Size and layout for hosting. Alumni buyers who intend to host friends and family on game weekends often gravitate toward 2BR or 3BR units rather than studios. The extra bedroom covers itself quickly in either hosted guests or rental income from a friend splitting costs.
The conversation I have with most alumni buyers
I've had a version of this conversation dozens of times. An ND alum calls me — usually in January or February, usually right after they've just paid a brutal hotel bill for a bowl game or CFP weekend. They know what they want. They've been thinking about it for years. What they need is for someone to tell them it's actually realistic.
Almost without exception, it is. The alumni who come to me thinking they can't afford it discover that the effective monthly cost — after STR income on the weekends they're not there — is closer to what they're already spending on game-weekend hotels than they expected. The down payment is the real hurdle, and there are strategies to address that too.
What I want to know before I show anyone a single listing is what they're actually optimizing for — the experience, the income, the investment, or some combination. That answer shapes everything about which neighborhoods, which buildings, and which price tiers make sense to look at. A five-minute conversation about your priorities is worth more than an afternoon of searching listings on your own.
The alumni who own near campus aren't richer than the ones who are still booking hotels. They just asked a different question at the right time.
— Tim Vicsik, Trueblood Real Estate"What's the reason you haven't looked into this before? Most alumni I work with say they just didn't think it was realistic — until they actually ran the numbers. I'm just curious what's held you back, because the answer to that usually tells me exactly what we need to solve for."
If you want to see what's currently available near Notre Dame Stadium — condos, homes and villas, and properties specifically suited to the game-day ownership strategy — it's all on my site. And when you're ready to have a real conversation about whether this makes sense for your situation, I'm straightforward with people: if it doesn't pencil out, I'll tell you. If it does, I'll show you exactly what it looks like.
Book a showing before next football season
The best properties near Notre Dame Stadium don't wait for summer. If you're planning to be in South Bend for a game, make it a showing weekend — I'll show you what your budget buys and what the numbers actually look like for your situation.
Call or text Tim: 574-329-9587 · Tim@TimVicsik.com · ND-Condos.com
Tim specializes in condos and homes near the University of Notre Dame, helping ND parents, alumni, and relocating buyers navigate one of the Midwest's most unique real estate markets. A South Bend area resident for over 50 years, Tim knows which buildings have STR-friendly HOAs, which streets are walking distance to the stadium, and yes — where to park on game day.
