The Splitting the Rent Formula
✉️ Want to forward this article? Click here.
Courtesy of New York magazine.
This article originally ran in February 2013.
When sharing an apartment or group house, it only seems fair that those in bigger rooms should pay a higher share of the rent. But, how do you factor in features like more windows, a fireplace, or a bigger closet?
Miller Samuel’s Jonathan Miller (who used to do an amazing job analyzing the DC market) takes a stab at how to calculate a fair rent split in an article for New York magazine.
For the article, Miller looks at a two-bedroom apartment with a rent of $3,200 a month.
Miller advocates for dividing the rent by square footage as proportionally as possible. In the example given, room A is 225 square feet, while room B is 175 square feet; this breaks down to a 9/7 ratio. By our calculations, that comes to $1,800 for roommate A and $1,400 for roommate B. (Roommate A is responsible for 56.25 percent of the rent, and roommate B for 43.75 percent.)
If one bedroom has an attached bathroom, said Miller, that should be worth about 2 percent of the monthly rent, or $64 in the example. In the article, room B has a bathroom, so the divide changes: roommate A pays $1,736, and roommate B pays $1,464.
From there, other square-footage adding amenities, like a bigger closet or a terrace, need to be factored in. Miller offers a few equations to help crunch the numbers in a fair manner. After that, various life-enhancing amenities may warrant slight adjustments. For example, a fireplace might with worth about $25 dollars more a month.
While this approach may require you breaking out the TI-82, the fairness of the final result may ultimately mitigate tensions among roommates. Readers, how do you go about dividing up the rent?
Similar Posts:
- First Timer Primer: Tax Relief for DC Homeowners
- First Timer Primer: How Do Mortgage Payments Work?
- First Timer Primer: How Much Cash Do You Need to Buy a House?
- First-Timer Primer: The Mortgage Pre-Approval Process
- How a $100 Mistake Can Sink Your Credit Score
See other articles related to: first-timer primer, jonathan miller, new york magazine, renting, renting in dc, splitting the rent
This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.production.logicbrush.com/articles/blog/first_timer_primer_splitting_the_rent/6702.
Most Popular... This Week • Last 30 Days • Ever
A look at the closing costs that homebuyers pay at the closing table.... read »
3331 N Street NW sold in an off-market transaction on Thursday for nearly $12 million... read »
In this article, UrbanTurf will explore the considerations and steps involved in buyi... read »
The most expensive home to sell in the DC region in years closed on Halloween for an ... read »
Paradigm Development Company has plans in the works to build a 12-story, 110-unit con... read »
DC Real Estate Guides
Short guides to navigating the DC-area real estate market
We've collected all our helpful guides for buying, selling and renting in and around Washington, DC in one place. Start browsing below!
First-Timer Primers
Intro guides for first-time home buyers
Unique Spaces
Awesome and unusual real estate from across the DC Metro