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Apartment dilema...

ed21x

ed21x

Diamond Member
Greetings anandtechers!

Currently, myself and two friends will be moving into a 2 bedroom apartment. The situation goes, the apartment costs 1540 (obviously not a luxury apartment by berkeley standards =P), and the two people sharing would be sharing a room slightly larger than the guy who gets his own room. How would you guys split the price to this place so that it would be fair for everyone?

660,440,440?

640, 450,450?

etc?
 
What's the total square feet of the apartment, and what is the square feet of the bedrooms?

KK
 
Take the square footage of the entire apartment and divide it by the rent. See what you are paying per sq ft. Then take out the sq footage of common areas. See what each bedroom is worth by sq feet.
 
Me and two of my friends are moving into a 3-bdrm apt. and one of the rooms is larger, and has a private bathroom - what we decided on is that whoever gets the big room pays the same rent, but covers all the bills. And BTW, $1450?! My apt. costs $600 per month for the three of us! :Q
 
Originally posted by: Millennium
Take the square footage of the entire apartment and divide it by the rent. See what you are paying per sq ft. Then take out the sq footage of common areas. See what each bedroom is worth by sq feet.
Click to expand...

Not sure if that is quite as "fair" as it appears. For instance, if the guy who has the bedroom by himself has a TV and computer in his room, and the other two pretty much watch TV in the living room, then that is the trade off. Especially if there is women involved (or you plan to have women over) then this makes a big difference if one of the guys who share a room is always in the living room with his women watching movies, etc. The guy who has the room to himself is always expected to watch TV in his own room if he doesn't want to watch what the other guys are watching.

So that is one angle you can work if you are the guy with the room by himself. I would make it so that they only paid $100 less each.
 
Originally posted by: Millennium
I see so far that only KK and I have ever lived in an Apartment...
Click to expand...

LOL, well, I have to say I never had roommates though. It just seems fair to do it by square feet somehow.

KK

 
Originally posted by: dhans1
Originally posted by: Millennium
Take the square footage of the entire apartment and divide it by the rent. See what you are paying per sq ft. Then take out the sq footage of common areas. See what each bedroom is worth by sq feet.
Click to expand...

Not sure if that is quite as "fair" as it appears. For instance, if the guy who has the bedroom by himself has a TV and computer in his room, and the other two pretty much watch TV in the living room, then that is the trade off. Especially if there is women involved (or you plan to have women over) then this makes a big difference if one of the guys who share a room is always in the living room with his women watching movies, etc. The guy who has the room to himself is always expected to watch TV in his own room if he doesn't want to watch what the other guys are watching.

So that is one angle you can work if you are the guy with the room by himself. I would make it so that they only paid $100 less each.
Click to expand...

Actually yes- i will be the one with my own room. But only a $100 differentiation would obviously not go well with the other two, so I'm trying to work out something fair. I think 640, 450,450 seems to be about right for now... it breaks down to about 42%/58%
 
Originally posted by: dhans1
Originally posted by: Millennium
Take the square footage of the entire apartment and divide it by the rent. See what you are paying per sq ft. Then take out the sq footage of common areas. See what each bedroom is worth by sq feet.
Click to expand...

Not sure if that is quite as "fair" as it appears. For instance, if the guy who has the bedroom by himself has a TV and computer in his room, and the other two pretty much watch TV in the living room, then that is the trade off. Especially if there is women involved (or you plan to have women over) then this makes a big difference if one of the guys who share a room is always in the living room with his women watching movies, etc. The guy who has the room to himself is always expected to watch TV in his own room if he doesn't want to watch what the other guys are watching.

So that is one angle you can work if you are the guy with the room by himself. I would make it so that they only paid $100 less each.
Click to expand...

Rules like that never work. Go with the square footage way. Actually, I need more information. Is he taking the MB or are you and the friend?
 
the two sharing have the larger room, while i get the smaller one. The apartments' pretty ghetto so I wouldn't give the status of either of these rooms to be called a "Master bedroom" =P. There's only one bathroom for the entire place.
 
personally, i would treat it as a 2 bedroom apt being shared by 2 people....each bedroom is worth 1/2 of the rent, which means, you, getting the room to yourself pays 770, while the 2 sharing the room have to split the 770 by 2, so 385 a person for each of them. i mean it is essentially a 2 bedroom place, so that does seem a lil fair.....


and btw, each of you pays an equal share of all the bills since each of you would basically be using 1/3 of the total bills.
hope that helps....
 
Originally posted by: Farbio
personally, i would treat it as a 2 bedroom apt being shared by 2 people....each bedroom is worth 1/2 of the rent, which means, you, getting the room to yourself pays 770, while the 2 sharing the room have to split the 770 by 2, so 385 a person for each of them. i mean it is essentially a 2 bedroom place, so that does seem a lil fair.....


and btw, each of you pays an equal share of all the bills since each of you would basically be using 1/3 of the total bills.
hope that helps....
Click to expand...

but if one bedroom is bigger than the other it wouldnt be split 50/50
 
Use square footage to build the ratios - yours is 1/3 of non-bedroom space + your bedroom, they each have 1/3 + half their bedroom, then divide up the rent in the same ratios as the square footage. I think that's fair and I think it's important to add that common space because you all use it and otherwise the ratio is very hard on the person with their own bedroom. If you wanted to make the results biased because it seems to be too hard on you, then try to argue adding all of the non-bedroom space to everyone's total; if it's too hard on them then remove the non-bedroom space from the equation.
 
Originally posted by: Farbio
personally, i would treat it as a 2 bedroom apt being shared by 2 people....each bedroom is worth 1/2 of the rent, which means, you, getting the room to yourself pays 770, while the 2 sharing the room have to split the 770 by 2, so 385 a person for each of them. i mean it is essentially a 2 bedroom place, so that does seem a lil fair.....


and btw, each of you pays an equal share of all the bills since each of you would basically be using 1/3 of the total bills.
hope that helps....
Click to expand...

that's how I would treat the situation
 
Use price per square feet times 1/3 (since 3 people) MINUS the square foot cost of the (common area + 2/3 non common area). Then if you're in the smaller room you'll fairly end up paying less than the person living in the larger room, more than the person in the medium room, and the square feet of the common area plus medium divided by 3 (since 3 people) is exactly how much the guy in the big room should pay.
 
The problem with dividing cost on a sq footage basis is that the two guys sharing a room are at significant disadvantage over the guy with the room to himself in terms of having overnight guests.If you get into dividing
things that way you're going to have nothing but constant squabbling and terrirtory wars because over time this disadvantage will be a problem. I say treat it as a two bedroom with the guy having his own room paying 1/2 the rent and the other two dividing the other half between them,work out a schedule for the common areas of the house with each roomate getting the living room 2 nites per week and the 7th nite being reserved for a house nite in which all 3 of you can wander in/out at will.I'd divide utlities by 3.
 
Originally posted by: Farbio
personally, i would treat it as a 2 bedroom apt being shared by 2 people....each bedroom is worth 1/2 of the rent, which means, you, getting the room to yourself pays 770, while the 2 sharing the room have to split the 770 by 2, so 385 a person for each of them. i mean it is essentially a 2 bedroom place, so that does seem a lil fair.....


and btw, each of you pays an equal share of all the bills since each of you would basically be using 1/3 of the total bills.
hope that helps....
Click to expand...

Yea, but you are all paying for the living room too. I don't think the 75/25 split is really fair to the person paying 75...sure he gets (almost)twice the sleeping area, but with less people, everyone gets more space in the common area. I think something more along the lines of 65/35 or 60/40 is more fair.
 
Originally posted by: Farbio
personally, i would treat it as a 2 bedroom apt being shared by 2 people....each bedroom is worth 1/2 of the rent, which means, you, getting the room to yourself pays 770, while the 2 sharing the room have to split the 770 by 2, so 385 a person for each of them. i mean it is essentially a 2 bedroom place, so that does seem a lil fair.....


and btw, each of you pays an equal share of all the bills since each of you would basically be using 1/3 of the total bills.
hope that helps....
Click to expand...

this is exaclty what i would do, i currently live in a 2 bedroom apt. w/3 people living in it. Me and another roomate have our own bedroom and the 3rd chose to sleep in the living room, (dont ask), we simply break the bills all in 3 and pay them that way, much easier and less headaches that way
 
I would just bid for the bigger room. Start at 50/50 and if all three still want the room then jack up the price. when it finally gets soo much that only 1 person wants to pay for it then BINGO there is yer price!

 
I've been in this situation, except with a house.

The Master bedroom (I had it) was not big, but had a private full-bath.
Both other bedrooms were about the same size, no BR in either.

I paid $40/mo more (IIRC) than the other two guys. I felt this was very fair.

IMO, the idea of one person footing all the bills is absurd. For a 1500SF apt or house here in South Texas, you electricity bill for May thru Oct would be $200/mo easy! :Q

$1500/3=500, but you have a private bedroom. 640, 450, 450 sounds fair to me. 🙂
 
Originally posted by: Farbio
personally, i would treat it as a 2 bedroom apt being shared by 2 people....each bedroom is worth 1/2 of the rent, which means, you, getting the room to yourself pays 770, while the 2 sharing the room have to split the 770 by 2, so 385 a person for each of them. i mean it is essentially a 2 bedroom place, so that does seem a lil fair..... and btw, each of you pays an equal share of all the bills since each of you would basically be using 1/3 of the total bills. hope that helps....
Click to expand...

What about the living room and kitchen?? The person with his own bedroom has to share that with two people instead of one and still pays half the rent.
 
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