Myself and my prospective roommate have decided to move into a three bedroom condo with a garage. All of the bedrooms are equal size, closet space (ie. not one is better than the other). My roommate will be taking the third bedroom as extra storage space/place for visitors to stay.
My question is how should we split the rent? 50/50 doesn’t seem fair in my favor and 1/3 to 2/3’s seems a bit extreme. What is a good split that will be fair for each party involved?
I also travel over 50% of the year for work. With the exception of internet/tv, I will be contributing substantially less to our electricity, heating and water utilities. Should utilities still be split 50/50? It seems like it would be hard to calculate it any other way.
Lastly, we are planning to split use of a garage. What would be a good system to ensure fair use of the garage. Since I travel, would it make sense that I have use of the garage when I am home and my roommate has use when I am away or is it just better to trade every other week which would be much less in my favor.
Thanks! I have had many roommates before, but this is a new situation.
Were you living with a third roommate, you’d all pay 1/3 of the rent but if it’s two of you and one is going to take a second bedroom solely for their use and deprive the two of you of the savings of a third roommate, I say it’s on him to shoulder that burden. If the guest bedroom is equally available to both members than 50:50 is reasonable.
Utilities, I just don’t think it’s worth it to do more math than you have to.
What are you each planning to use the garage for, if it makes sense to split it week/week, instead of splitting the space inside the garage? If it’s to actually park your car, and it’s a one-car garage, do you take your car when you travel?
But having two roommates would suck more than only having one. I agree with the OP that 2/3 seems like a bit much. 1/2 is definitely not fair either though. Around 60/40 seems about right to me.
Since you’ve both decided to rent a 3 bedder with a garage, then I think the rent should be 50/50. He gets the use of the 3rd bedroom, and you get the garage which he can use when you’re not there.
Utilities are still 50/50. Whatever your job is, and however much time you spend away is a bit irrelevant - you still want a permanent place to call ‘home’, and this is the price you have to pay for that. I can only assume that wherever you stay when you’re working is paid for by your employer.
So 50/50 all round. Because it’s not about the floor space, or the minutiae of usage, it’s about neither of you thinking that you have more say in what goes on around the place.
Will you be allowed to put visitors in the extra room as well?
If you both get to host visitors in the spare bedroom, are you significantly less likely to actually host visitors than your roommate would be?
Unless they are both in agreement that they do not want a third roommate. If arkansaswoop’s roommate suddenly decides he no longer wants the extra expense of the spare bedroom, is that roommate free to seek out a third roommate? Or does arkansaswoop want to live with one roommate and one roommate only?
If both are in agreement that a third roommate is not desirable, and if arkansaswoop will not be making significant use of the spare bedroom, I would suggest something like this:
Kitchen + Living Room + Laundry + Bathroom(s) = “Common Area” = Half of total Rent
Three Bedrooms each equal one third of one half (one sixth of total rent)
Common Area- divide equally: 1/4 Total Rent for you, same for Roommate
Bedrooms- 1/6 Total Rent for you, 2/6 Total Rent for Roommate (1/3)
Your Rent= 1/4 + 1/6 = 5/12 Total Rent
Roommate= 1/4 + 1/3 = 7/12 Total Rent
If you’re going to do anything other than an even split for utilities, I’d say agree on a set split for every month regardless of how much time you spend out of town. If you’re gone for 14 days in June but you’re only gone for 8 days in July, just keep your agreed upon set rate- don’t do new math every month.
If you really are out of town a lot, it seems reasonable that you should get the parking when you’re home as your roommate is relieved of sharing while you’re gone. If you’re on good terms and you each expect the other to play fair, rather than a set division of parking access I think it’s reasonable to have an agreement such as “If the first one home finds available street parking, take it so that when the other comes home the parking space is available (whereas street parking may no longer be available).”
Although, I’ll say that this:
[QUOTE=6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast]
50/50. He gets the use of the 3rd bedroom, and you get the garage which he can use when you’re not there.
[/QUOTE]
. . . is convenient for you and is more than fair to the roommate. If you’re a fan of simplicity, I’d say this is the way to go.
When we were looking at places my roommate figured looking at three bedrooms for the two of us might be a good option. We found a nice place in our price range that we can afford 50/50. However, he said the 3rd bedroom would be good for visitors and he will put some furniture in there. Even if we shared it 50/50 use wise, it seems like it might be more his room. Hence, I figured I will not use the third room and he can pay slightly more. It seems that 60/40 might be the best compromise. He gets full time use of the room and on the off chance I have a guest he might be more amenable to them staying in the room since we wouldn’t split rent 1/3 and 2/3s.
Our place has ample outside, off street parking but also had a full one car garage. I think we both want to use the garage to store gear and cars. I figured that being away so frequently that just having it so that I am away he can use the garage, but when I am home I can use it. It really is not the biggest deal, but I would like to have something worked out going into it so I don’t end up never getting to use the garage.
Did the roommate agree to your plan to let him basically use the third bedroom as a second bedroom? If so, I don’t see why he would have a problem with some different pro-rated rent. Not 1/3:2/3 for the simple reason that there is more to the place you’re renting than just the bedrooms and you both share fully all the common space. So one of you getting a bit more private square footage is worth something but not that much.
A solution that would seem fair to me would be to furnish the third bedroom so that guests could use it. You both can have guests over as you wish. However, your roommate gets full use of the storage space in the second bedroom, and can put additional storage furniture in there and etc, you cannot. To compensate for that, you get the lion’s share of the garage storage space (he would get a small amount just because some stuff neither of you would want him storing in the house and would prefer in the garage.) But if you don’t value garage storage space and don’t ever want guests over he does get a much better deal out of it.
As for parking in the garage, to be honest what has always worked best IME is either one person pays extra and gets the garage 100% to themselves or you just work it out that whoever happens to drive up to an empty garage gets to use it. Sometimes that means one person may get it most of the time, but it gets a bit ridiculous in my opinion to work out certain days of the week that person A gets the garage and certain days of the week that person B gets the garage and etc.
What’s the rent on a two-bedroom unit in the same (or similar) complex? Maybe roomie should simply pay the difference between that and the rent on your place.
You don’t know it, but you are treading on shaky ground here. You are planting the seeds of resentment that can potentially ruin your friendship. You just do not want to enter a roommate relationship with this kind of nicole and dime attitude.
Utilities are 50/50, and that’s just how it is. You’ll never come up with something else that’s fair. If you live in a house, you pay an equal share of the utilities and that’s just how it is.
Likewise with the garage, having to switch up your plans whenever you happen to be home is not okay. Either you rent the garage and he has the option to use it when you are gone (but ultimately it’s yours), or you switch off on a regular, timed basis (six months/six months would be best, though monthly could work.) He needs to be able to have some stability.
With the spare room, I think that you could spit up into thirds, or do 40/60, or whatever.
I agree with even sven that you are on shaky grounds and it’s not a good sign that you haven’t worked this out ahead of time. And also, with your last response you seemed to imply that you just “feel” like the room is going to be mostly your roommates, but maybe your roommate doesn’t want to claim the room all to themselves.
I’d be careful here. I think if you both mentioned splitting things 50/50 in the beginning when looking at 3 bedroom houses, you should stick to that.
If you really want to nitpick the utilities, just figure out how many days of the billing cycle each person was present for. In a 30 day month, if you were there 20 days and he was there 30 days, then he pays 30/50 of the bill and you play 20/50. That’s how I had to do it when people were moving in and out of my house mid-month.
In terms of the third bedroom: are there two bedroom units in the same complex, or in very similar complexes? If a two bedroom is $500/month and a three bedroom is $600, you should pay $250 and he should pay $350. However, you have to 100% never, ever, ever use that room: if your om comes to stay, she sleeps on the couch. Anything else will lead to resentment. He is 100% paying for that room–so he gets 100% of the use of it, and it doesn’t reduce his use of storage space in the rest of the apartment: you can’t expect to have more of the storage space in the garage, because “he has that whole room”: he’s paying for that separately.
In terms of the garage, I agree that one month on/one month off is a fair trade, and if your car doesn’t travel with you, it doesn’t matter if you aren’t there. You will benefit from having your car under cover instead of sitting in the same spot for a week at a time attracting thieves and bird crap.
I think I will approach it as splitting the rent 60/40 without my use of the room. If we decide to share the room rent will be 50/50. The garage will get split up on a weekly or monthly basis.