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College Marketplace is the student-only buy and sell app for George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Every account is verified with a @gmu.edu email address, so you're only ever trading with other Patriots — not strangers from Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist.

Mason's Fairfax housing is spread across a handful of neighborhoods, and almost every listing here starts in one of them. First-year Patriots land in the traditional halls of Presidents Park, in Taylor Hall, in the seven halls that make up The Commons, or in suite-style Commonwealth Hall. Upper-level students move into the suites — Blue Ridge and Sandbridge, Dominion Hall, Eastern Shore, Piedmont, Tidewater, Whitetop, Hampton Roads Hall, and the Angel Cabrera Global Center — or into apartment living at Liberty Square, Northern Neck, Potomac Heights, Rogers, and the Townhouses. Whatever the room needs, everything you need is already on campus. Mason students post mini fridges, futons, storage bins, desk lamps, monitors, bikes, and gently used textbooks every semester, usually for a fraction of retail.

Rooms come furnished with an adjustable extra-long twin bed, a desk and chair, a dresser, and built-in closet shelving, which means the bedding you buy has to be Twin XL and anything else has to fit around what's already in there. Mason beds loft, but only the university's own frames do — outside loft beds are on the prohibited list, so lofting hardware and bed risers move fast in August. The appliance rules are specific: an Energy Star mini fridge up to 4.3 cubic feet (3.3 cubic feet if it isn't Energy Star certified), and microwaves capped at 800 watts. Personal air conditioners aren't allowed either. Upper-level rooms have thermostats residents control, while many first-year halls run on central air students can't adjust, which is why fans get resold constantly. Laundry is free in every building, and the townhouses have a washer and dryer in the unit.

When it's time to hand something off, stay somewhere busy and central. The Johnson Center is the obvious pick, with Wilkins Plaza right outside its doors, and Fenwick Library, the Aquatic and Fitness Center, and Mason Pond all work just as well. No shipping labels, no delivery fees, no meeting someone off campus.

Popular categories at George Mason: textbooks and course materials · dorm and apartment furniture · mini fridges and microwaves · bikes and scooters · Mason apparel and game day gear · electronics and monitors · event tickets · lofting kits and bed risers · storage bins and organizers