CAL POLY - Cal Poly started classes Monday with 805 more dormitory beds and about 450 fewer students on campus.

With more students living on campus and the opening enrollment down from a year ago, rental agencies report vacancies are up in San Luis Obispo while prices are down.

Opening day at the university seemed pretty much like any other beginning of the school year. Some students stood in line to buy textbooks, while others tried to crash classes.

Cal Poly officials say slightly more than 18,000 students are enrolled this fall, down from 18,453 last year.

State budget cuts caused the enrollment decline. There are fewer classes available at public universities and colleges because there are fewer instructors this year than before.

The new apartment-style dormitory filled with students last week, and campus housing officials say 99 percent of the rest of the 2,763 dorm spaces are full. None of the students in the dorms will be tripling up in rooms, like some have had to do in the past two years, said Carole Schaffer, assistant director of housing.

The impact of the new dormitory is also being felt in the neighborhoods of San Luis Obispo.

The new dorm has effectively added 200 to 300 vacant apartments that would have otherwise been rented, said Tony Flatos, director of property management at Farrell Smyth Inc. in San Luis Obispo.

"It forced prices to drop," he said.

Flatos said a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment that would have rented for $1,600 a month one year ago is now listing in the range of $900 to $1,200.

Derek Banducci is seeing similar changes in the past year as the property manager at California-West Inc. Real Estate Management. He believes the dorm, however, may be just one of a few reasons for the vacancies and falling prices.

Banducci said the other factors include fewer students at both Cal Poly and Cuesta, partly caused by the state's budget woes, and new apartments built in the city.

"So many things are happening simultaneously, it's hard to isolate one factor," he said.

Vacancies also exist at Mustang Village, a complex of 422 apartments on Foothill Boulevard adjacent to campus.

More availability of houses in the city would please Cydney Holcomb, chairwoman of the Residents for Quality Neighborhood. She said the group has advocated for more student housing on campus for years, to free up more homes for young families and others.

"This might provide more space for faculty members and others who want to live in the city," she said.

Holcomb has seen rental signs posted on front lawns for longer periods of time than in the past, but figures the bigger impact will take time to realize.

"It seems to me it's going to take a while for the market to adjust."

At the housing bulletin board on campus in the University Union, only a handful of students wandered by over a 30-minute period Monday afternoon to look at 34 handwritten listings spread out over two corkboards. Over the same period, several dozen students lingered over the adjacent displays advertising items for sale including furniture, cars and concert tickets.

The abundance of vacant rooms off campus does not mean an end to couch surfing, the practice of sleeping on a friend's couch until a room becomes available somewhere. At least, that's according Nick Gupda, a senior business student working the information desk upstairs in the University Union.

"There's still a need for cheap housing close to campus."