2 bedroom apartment problem(looking for advice from the esteemed CAGs)

T

TheTrueSephiroth

CAGiversary!
So my cousin and I are about to move into a new apartment. And we are trying to decide who gets the big room, and how the person with the small room will be compensated for that concession. The only thing we can come up with is the person with the larger room pays a higher percentage of the rent. The only problem with this idea is that we don't want it to be like "this apartment is more mine than yours" type of situation. Not that we are like that as people, but if a situation arose where we disagreed about something concerning the apartment, theoretically the person who "owns more of the place" could pull that card to win the argument, and we want to avoid that type of situation.


If anyone has any alternate ideas, I would greatly appreciate the advice. Thanks a lot CAGs! I could've posted in a lot of off-topic forums but for me it was a no brainer to post here!
 
How much bigger is the main bedroom? If it's not too much, it might just be better to split the cost evenly. If you want to have the cost proportional, I guess you could figure out the ratio between the room size to apartment cost.

Utilities are a different matter; I would split that 50/50 regardless (even if you do use less water haha)

Good luck!

EDIT: wow lots of "o"s
 
in my last year of college I moved in with a buddy of mine. I got the bigger room an I paid more rent. it was never a problem. if one of you is gonna be an asshole aboutthe apartment ring more theirs because of ret then odds are they're gonna be an ass hole for something else too.
 
I'd say flip for it, and have an agreement that whoever gets the larger room always has responsibility for one specific chore...like taking out garbage or something. That way there's an earned element to having the bigger room without it being a "well, I'm paying more than you" kind of thing.
 
What are the rest of the costs of the apartment? Electric? Gas? Water? Trash? Internet?

If you're talking a 200 versus 400 square foot room, have the winner pay the electric bill.

If there is gas heat and the difference is 200 versus 300, have the winner pay the gas bill. It won't be much in summer, but winter will be painful.

If the difference is 200 versus 250, have the winner pay a small bill like water, trash or internet.

Don't play any games with rent. Split it 50/50 with full access to communal areas.

...

Since nobody has offered this gem of advice, be prepared to never speak to your cousin again. Your cousin will be a slob, a neat freak, a drug addict, a drug dealer, a NARC, a night owl, an early riser, a womanizer, a manizer, a prude or something else that you just can't stand. Good luck.
 
Whoever between the both of you that has a better chance to see a vagina should get the bigger room, if that cant be determined just flip for it.
 
I feel alot of ppl above stated this already, but if it isn't that big of a difference, just flip for it. I did that one year with a roomie when the difference in room sizes was maybe an additional five feet (for a toal of about 35 ish square feet).

If it is a huge difference (like one room is practically a closet of the other), then you need to break it up another way. Ways friends of mine have done this: 60/40% rent (instead of 50/50), being given sole access to another equally small room (to fit furniture), having the larger room in sole charge of like electricity (with a 50/50 rent split), etc.

Hope this helps.
 
It can go both ways. I rented a place with a friend, and he was a dick because he payed more of the rent, so the place was more "his" than mine according to him.

After he left, I took over the larger room and rented with two other guys and didn't really have a problem; it is all how you approach the situation. Just make the person who has the larger room also take on more responsibilities be it chores, or taking care of the bills. Try and come to a mutual agreement before someone takes the room so that you have something to fall back on just in case.
 
It's pretty standard to pay a bit more rent for the larger room. Before I finished grad school I was living in a 3 bedroom apartment with 3 roommates.

The large master bedroom (with private bathroom) rented for $750, my room which was also pretty big and was near the 2nd bathroom was $650 and and a much smaller room upstairs (that shared the downstairs bathroom with me) went for $550.

Utilities were split evenly.
 
I've seen it both ways. A friend of mine who lives in a group house divides their rent based on the size of the room. I'm in the same situation and we all pay equal parts, it works for us.

Keep in mind that all the common areas are still shared, and thats really a large part of what you're paying for anyway. Personally I would want to split it evenly, but I could see it working the other way.
 
Larger room should pay more. Utilities and shit should be equal. Make sure you come up with a cleaning/chores schedule, too, or one of you is going to be doing all the cleaning all the time (or none of it will ever get done, and you will be living in a dump).

Are you splitting the phone bill? The person with the most long distance should pay more.
 
I'm not going to be anyone's maid. If one of you isn't able to pay more, the perfect choice would be for the one with the big room pay like $30 more than half and the other pay $30 less than half. Unless the big room is also a master with walk-in closet, then maybe make the spread just a little bit more. But if money is no object for either of you, maybe you'll have to flip and then do that.

The last few years of college I paid the premium for a private room with a big closet. I just had to have it that way. I never took over the apartment because my extra rent was in the bedroom. But I did have a few roommates in the shared bedroom who thought they could just take over common closets because they had to share one. I had to explain to them that just because me or the other guy had bigger rooms didn't mean we didn't get access to the hall or bathroom closets. We had the bigger rooms because we were paying extra for them.

So if you can, make it be about money. If one person pays more, it is for the bedroom, nothing else. The rest of the apartment is equal grounds. And that goes both ways. Just because one guy has a bigger bedroom does not give the other guy the right to let his creep colony spill out into the commons area.

I think the best plan is to find a complex that has a college style floorplan. If you have never seen one, it is one with a grand living room in the center and bedroom entry ways on either side. Each entry has a bathroom, a linen closet and a bedroom. Pretty much a symmetrical apartment layout besides the kitchen and the apartment entry mirroring each other.
 
Would you prefer the big room? If it doesn't matter to you, let your cousin have it, split the rent and utilities 50/50, and let it go. Nitpicking over individual costs will lead to resentment on both sides. If your cousin is the wasteful type and uses far more energy than you, then you need a new roommate.
 
You could try paying by square footage. Half of the common area to each plus whatever the area of the rooms are. One person doesn't own more of the apartment then, you're both paying for half of the area you're using and whatever amount of the room space they are using. It wouldn't really entitle anyone to more control of the apartment because you are paying for your space.
 
What's so confusing? The person who has the bigger room should pay a bit more rent since yeah.. they're getting MOAR. I'm in college now.. and that's how pretty much we all do it. Makes the most sense does it not?
 
I think a distinction also needs to be made when you're dealing with friends/family or just roommates. For all you guys saying "just have him pay more rent" and be done with it, I don't think it's that cut and dry when you're dealing with someone you've known for several years. If it's a person you don't know, and could care less about being their friend, then yeah, tell them to deal with it and that they're lucky to be living there.

However, money is the number one cause of problems in any relationship, and if the person paying less ends up being a total slob, the person with the bigger room isn't going to care that he has a bigger room. He's going to feel like he's paying more to live in a dump.

Otherwise, the landlord might as well just draw up the lease that way and assign people to specific rooms based on how much rent they want to pay. Especially when you could be nitpicking over a difference of 10 sq ft. I will say that if it's a large difference with a private bathroom, then yeah, you could make a case for paying more. But MOST college apartments I've seen aren't drastically different in terms of size/amenities.

I wouldn't ever suggest the person with the bigger room have to clean up after the other roommates, but taking out the garbage is just something that has to be done, regardless of how messy anybody is (for that matter, you could give the person with the smaller room the better parking space, if such a thing exists). In cases where the rooms are close in size, I think it's a fair task to earn the right to have the bigger room. Basically, whoever is willing to do that should get the room, and if they ever get tired of doing it, they can give the room up. Simple as that.

Either way, unless you put it in writing (which you would still have to take to civil court should any problems arise), it's just a friendly agreement. I doubt the landlord really cares who pays what, but my guess is if the rent was ever short, they would expect each party to pay equally.
 
The person who gets the bigger room usually has to pay a few more bucks. Thats all there is to it. If you really want to keep it 50/50 then the idea of the person with the larger room being in charge of trash take out is a decent trade.

Or maybe the person who's TV is in the living room should get the bigger room? Since you are using his stuff?
 
I currently have the bigger bedroom in my apartment, we pay equal rent. We initially flipped for it and I won. Basically, all my stuff is in the room and he has free run of the smaller room and the living room. It's worked out pretty well so far.
 
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