Renting a 4 bedroom house with 5 people (lease, square footage, renters, security deposit)
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Hey, I'm looking for good ideas on how to handle this situation I'm looking to get myself into. And when I say "situation", I realize that it may not be viable and could possibly be a volatile one.
The house we're looking at is a two-story, 4 bed, 3.5 bath. The master bedroom is quite large with an attached full bathroom, with another bedroom around the corner that is medium size. Another bedroom on the other side of the house is *very* small, while the last bedroom is medium size, but downstairs. Also, there is a two-car garage with enough space for storage above the cars. Renters are asking $2200 before utilities.
Here's where it gets tricky: myself (Jamie) and my current roommate (Ali) are the normal situation. We just want a room, no weird stuff. However one girl (Laura) has a dog that she wants to move in, so I say she gets downstairs room no questions asked, the dog is never allowed upstairs as there are new hardwood floors (and I have a very minor pet allergy, but I love doggies!). The master bed gets weirder. The younger girl (Cara) can't quite afford to pay a quarter of $2200, so her friend (Christy) offered to stay there a few nights a week and split her share of the rent.
Cara expects that each room is effectively worth 1/4 of the rent, $550, therefore should only have to pay $275 and her friend will pay the other $275. However Ali and I don't feel the same, obviously, and wouldn't mind paying a little cheaper in rent if we can. So we decided one way to set it it up is each room is worth a certain amount. My medium size room would be worth $515, and so would Ali's small room, except she gets one of the garage spaces. The downstairs could be $530 due to the major amount of privacy and "extra space." Which leaves the master bed and bath at $640 (split however they decide). And shoot, we'll give them the other garage space, too.
This is just the first thing I came up with, so any recommendations here would be great. Now, onto the second part: we don't know Cara's friend very well and want to know what we can do legally to make sure we don't get screwed. For all we know, she might split after two months, leaving Cara to pay a rent she can't afford, which would end up making her leave the house (and breaking our lease). Also, I have a feeling each person paying a different amount might lead to bickering a number of months down the line, so is there any kind of contract I could draw up to keep everyone happy and make sure we don't screw each other? I mean even an informal piece of paper stating what each person is expected to pay each month and everyone's signatures would hold up in court if worse came to worse, right?
God, wall of text, sorry! Thanks in advance for the help.
This will not end well and is way too complicated. Suggest you and your roommate look for something affordable just for the two of you and avoid this potential mess. Good luck!
All renters have to be on the lease and when one bails, the landlord can go after all or one for the rest for the rent. You are setting yourself up for failure.
Ugh hit send on accident. We packed into that townhouse. It's called college, it's pretty normal. Before then we were the same 5 in a 3 bed 2 bath house. It can be done.
We priced things out by square footage. Take the whole square footage and divide it by your rent. This is your price per square foot. Common area square footage is divided by all renters. Each room is priced out for each renter. Shared bathrooms are split between the people who are using it. If its a bathroom for everyone, everyone pays a share.
No one paid a premium for sharing or not sharing a room, for having the master bedroom, or having a downstairs room.
For the roommate with the dog I would simply suggest having her shoulder more of the security deposit rather than pay 10-15 dollars more in rent. If there are any damages it's likely that some would be from the dog. You want that on her, not on your security deposit. Otherwise the $5/10 a month you save under your plan might be lost to repairs when you move out.
It's hard to live with so many people in one house but its doable.
It's hard to live with so many people in one house but its doable.
"Doable" but not necessarily sensible, and particularly in this situation where there are already disagreements before anything has been signed. All the warning signals are there which is why the majority has urged the OP not to move forwards.
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