The line sometimes starts forming as early as 3 a.m. But these people are not waiting to buy tickets to a rock concert coming to town. They are camped out on Holyoke Street looking for a permanent place to hang their hat-a Harvard-affiliated apartment.

These are the unlucky ones who didn't hit the jackpot in Harvard Planning and Real Estate's (HPRE) biannual housing lottery, the first step in the quest for a space in coveted Harvard housing.

The lottery odds are a little better Hardvard admissions, but the lottery is still a long shot: 2,848 Harvard affiliates applied for the 648 apartments available in the spring 1998 lottery.

And demand is no the rise: this number is about 600 more than in the previous year, says Pamela Dunn, Manager of housing and leasing services for HPRE.

For some students, the only option if they can't find housing outside of Harvard is the long early-morning wait at HPRE for an "immediate occupancy" apartment.

"A huge line forms waiting for the office to open at 10. Then it's first come first serve-the line alternates with phone orders. It's wild experience," says Peabody Terrace resident Amanda Zuckerman '00 in an e-mail message.

There are three types of apartments available through immediate occupancy: apartments that do not turn over often and are not offered in the lottery, apartments that HPRE feels tenants should see before renting, or apartments accepted in the lottery but then rejected are available for immediate occupancy.

Undergraduates, graduate students, faculty and staff are given equal status in the lottery, except for families with three or more children, who have first dibs on appropriate units. Although most graduate students need to find their own housing, the Business School and the Law School have a good deal of on-campus housing for their students.

About 16 percent of graduate student, 5 percent of faculty, and less than 1 percent of staff live in affiliated housing, according to HPRE director Susan Keller. Fewer than 100 undergraduates apply to live in the Harvard affiliates apartments.

Business School first-year Eleanor R. Fuqua applied for a single in the Soldier's Field Road apartments near the Allston campus when she received an HPRE brochure in her admissions package.

Fuqua waited several weeks after sending in her application before she found out her status in the lottery.

"It would help to know along the way where you stood in the lottery," she says. "The sooner you could know, the sooner you could jump on the problem".

Although she received a single in the lottery, Fuqua later met a roommate and decided not to take the room. She next tried for an immediate occupancy apartment.

The immediate occupancy procedure is even more difficult for those trying to find housing before they arrive in Cambridge.

"I was living in California and I found it pretty hard to go through," Fuqua says. She says she woke up at 7 a.m. every morning to call for several weeks trying to find an apartment with no success.