A few months back, I posted about Harvard student Jonathan Bittner and his rent calculator, which can give you a good idea about how much your share of the rent will be using scientific formulas based on square footage and other aspects of the place you are sharing with others.
Jonathan has now released a new site, Splittherent.com that allows you to keep track of the rent and expenses for you and your roommates. This allows you to keep exact tabs on who owes what and why. No more grey areas and wondering why you’re short on your portion of the rent when you shouldn’t be. So check it out, and see if it makes your shared situation any easier.
Discussion1 Comment
Hi, I’ve done share accom for 20 years, and have come across some weird people…lol… 1. Sheila a lady from England stayed with us, she has moved back now, but she picked up a dead white faced owl off the road and stuck it in our freezer, another boarder Damian, who shared the freezer told me about it and how she did not want me to know, and how he thought she was inconsiderate as the bird could have died from a disease and sent the rest of the food to be contaminated that we all had stored to eat.. I soon grabbed the possibly diseased contaminated owl and threw it in the bin. The next day Sheila went looking for the owl… I joked to my husband WHO WHO stole the owl.. lol…we all had a great old laugh, except for Sheila of course.. I have many more stories to tell you, but I have met some wonderful people too, and learnt many valuable lessons also about trust/money, and reliability. The most important thing I can tell you all is not to rent your rooms at too low a price, as if you do this the boarders are not even paying you for the extra power they are using… These days I have 3 rooms in a really nice wealthy area starting at $200-$300 depending if they have internet/austar/aircon. We do live in an expensive home, and bills are even more expensive at $2000/quarter.
Also its very important you include your bills within the cost of the rent, this is so much better than getting ripped off when the boarder does not pay up when the bills come in, some will move out before the bills come, and others will argue why they should pay at all or the amount they should have be asked to pay.. Make life easier for everyone, and tell them thats the exact reason, so they don’t get chased for the bills, and you don’t have to chase people up either, much, much easier and no more headaches.., I always charge around $20-$50more depending if aircon or not etc.. Never include meals, people eat at different times, and have different diets, plus this is time consuming, and you may find yourself spending all the hard earned board money on their meals, so again you are not making/saving anything toward your own bills.. These days I recommend you charge minimum $150wk for a dumpy place, then equate your bills on top..Remember you are only having a boarder in the first place to help pay the bills, they should never cost you money.. After all, how much price do you put on giving up your own privacy, not to mention some of the crap you have to put up with along the way.. ps. Do reference checks, if people don’t want to do one, or can’t give you one there’s normally a reason like they are a criminal or have not paid rent on time and have very bad name, black listed from paying rent thru real estates etc.. Always take a photocopy of their drivers licence, how else do you really know who is living in your home, and you will need proof if they do a runner and steal from you.. Its also normally a good idea to stick mainly to taking in working people, these are the people who will most likely pay rent on time and be reliable and not give you excuses.. Always take a deposit in case they damage/steal or break something in the home. I always charge 2weeks advance rent, and tell people when they give notice to leave, they don’t pay the rent for 2 weeks, this works out great both ways..
Hope this is helpful… I’m happy to assist if anyone has any further questions nattyanne123@gmail.com
Have a great Day 🙂