Weird question about rent (apartment, renters, how much)

[oakward]

There's three people in a 2 bedroom apartment. Should they:

(a) charge per bedroom. (the person with a whole room should pay half the rent.) or:
(b) split the rent equally.

Thanks!

[johnrex62]

LOL I am guessing you share a bedroom?


There is no right or wrong way to split the rent. Just decide on a rational and sell it to the other parties. You could argue on square footage, facilities used, utilization percentage or any number of factors.

Personally, I would split the rent equally and declare that the person with a private bedroom has to clean the bathroom.

[EscapeCalifornia]

I'd guess it really depends on what the value of having your own bedroom is. Some people may be willing to pay 50% of the rent just to have their own bedroom. I know I would if I were in that situation. Or you could start at splitting it evenly 3 ways and make the person with their own room pay a little extra so it could be split 40/30/30.

[ferretkona]

I know from last year, one extra body in the house costs money. The gas, electric and water went up more than a third. House work doubled.
As John mentioned there is no right way, just agree on one.

[Lovehound]

There's no set rule for this, nor any law. Whatever you all agree to is whatever it is.

Just my opinion, the person with the whole room should pay more than either of the room sharers, but not 50% of the whole rental fee. After all, everybody has access to the living room and kitchen, right?

You're going to have to come up with an amount that satisfies you all. My suggestion is that the person with the whole bedroom should pay a few hundred dollars, and then everybody should split into thirds whatever is left. How much "a few hundred dollars" is must be negotiated.


Please note also that depending on your rental agreement or lease you may have to pay the landlord more money. You should read your rental agreement or lease regarding the terms about how many people can live there, and who are authorized residents. Or otherwise you may expect trouble from your landlord, including additional fees for additional residents.

[joe stixpuck]

Originally Posted by EscapeCalifornia

Or you could start at splitting it evenly 3 ways and make the person with their own room pay a little extra so it could be split 40/30/30.

That sounds pretty fair. I don't it should be split equally, and 50/25/25 doesn't seem quite right either.

[lynz815]

I would not do 50/25/25 either, been there done that and learned the hard way. Either split it equally (assuming it is 3 adults living there) or figure out another way that everyone agrees upon.

[SOON2BNSURPRISE]

One suggestion is to determine the entire square footage of the unit. Devide the cost of rent by the square footage of the unit to determine the cost per square foot for the unit. Subtract both bedrooms and devide the remainder by three. That would account for the common area cost of rent that all three of you will use anyway. with the bedrooms determine the square footage of each. The two people that are sharing the bedroom can split that cost between the two of them, the roommate that has the room to them selves can pay for the entire cost of that square footage.

An example is if you have a 1,000 square foot apartment that you pay $1,000 a month for. Lets say that the bedrooms are both 200 square feet. You would subtract the square footage of the bedrooms leaving you with 600 square feet to devide up between the three of you. The roommate that gets the single bedroom pays the total of the amount for that room or $200 and the other two room mates split the cost of the other bedroom or $100 per person. A scenario like this would work out to one roommate paying $400 and each of the others paying $300. which in fact works out to a 40%, 30%, 30% split in the rent. Not saying that your situation resembles this at all, but at least you have something to work with. Your bedrooms may not be the same size. Many appartments have a master suite with a secondary bedroom. In that case an actual devision of the square footage would be needed.

Another thing to consider though is hard feelings. If you need to have each of the renters paying their share of the rent to make it and trying to split hairs is going to damamge the deal making it for an environment where one of the roommates may leave, then I would not worry about it and just pay the agreed upon rent.