Share an Apartment with Roommates
By Kyle Thomas Haley

A great way to save on living expenses is to find a roommate, an extremely popular cost-saving method for college students. The variance in price between multiple bedroom apartments versus single room or studio efficiencies is marginal. Therefore, renting a larger apartment and dividing the rent is much cheaper than living in a smaller apartment on your own. However, there are a lot of issues to sort out before entering into an agreement with a roommate.

If you already have roommate(s) selected, but need an apartment, you must decide on a location suitable for all residents. That’s the easy part. More complicated is deciding how to split up the expenses and responsibilities that are associated between roommates. It is recommended to include all roommates on the lease, ensuring they are on the hook for the rent payments and deposits.

Ideally each roommate should set up one of the necessary utilities such as gas or electric in his or her name. Then the monthly bills should be split accordingly. Other expenses such as cable, Internet connection and phone should be set up as desired. For example, if one roommate doesn’t intend to use the Internet from the apartment, she should not be expected to split that expense.

Space can dictate the amount of rent a roommate pays. If one resident would like to have the bedroom with bathroom attached, he might be expected to pay more than the roommates that share the bathroom in the hallway. These details should be ironed out before signing any lease and if at all possible put in writing.

About the author:

Kyle Thomas Haley of Durham North Carolina has been creating and administering Apartment Renting Sites for STANZEEKAY Inc. since 1999.

Copyright © 2006 STANZEEKAY Inc.

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Updated 6/12/2005