i'm living with my brother and cousin this year and we're trying to figure out how to split the rent.

the floor plan looks like this: http://lemontreaux.com/print-floorplan.php?UTypeID=8877

our cousin is taking the 13x10 room and paying 1/3 of the rent. my brother is willing to pay extra to have the 19x14 room while i take the 12x12 room. how much should he pay compared to me? our rent is $1310/month total.

thanks for any suggestions on how to split this, we're not sure whats fair.

Megaliskuu

United States5123 Posts

July 08 2011 07:38 GMT

If you went purely by square footage of rooms you get this:

Cousin:130sq ft $314.6
Brother: 266sq ft $643.72
You:144sq ft $348.38

I don't think thats how people normally do it, ur bro would be paying twice as much..but his room is twice as big...Yah I really have no idea xD

Cambium

United States16368 Posts

July 08 2011 07:42 GMT

The easiest way to do it is by the areas of the rooms you occupy (assuming everything else is shared)

So you have
130 - 130/540 * 1310 = 315
266 - 266/540 * 1310 = 645
144 - 144/540 * 1310 = 350

The problem with splitting rent based on size, from a game theory perspective, is that, you are assuming linear growth in utility with respective to room size (assuming money and utility are linear for trivial amounts), which is definitely not true.

ninja'd =.=

An alternative to do this is you bid on the rooms. You start with the biggest room, and it goes to the highest bidder; then you move to the next largest.

Megaliskuu

United States5123 Posts

July 08 2011 07:43 GMT

Cambium is smart and handsome.

syntox

Australia26 Posts

July 08 2011 07:51 GMT

On July 08 2011 16:38 Megaliskuu wrote:
If you went purely by square footage of rooms you get this:

Cousin:130sq ft $314.6
Brother: 266sq ft $643.72
You:144sq ft $348.38

I don't think thats how people normally do it, ur bro would be paying twice as much..but his room is twice as big...Yah I really have no idea xD

On July 08 2011 16:42 Cambium wrote:
The easiest way to do it is by the areas of the rooms you occupy (assuming everything else is shared)

So you have
130 - 130/540 * 1310 = 315
266 - 266/540 * 1310 = 645
144 - 144/540 * 1310 = 350

The problem with splitting rent based on size, from a game theory perspective, is that, you are assuming linear growth in utility with respective to room size (assuming money and utility are linear for trivial amounts), which is definitely not true.

ninja'd =.=

An alternative to do this is you bid on the rooms. You start with the biggest room, and it goes to the highest bidder; then you move to the next largest.

Both of you are forgetting that the cousin is paying 1/3 -> $436.67

YoUr_KiLLeR

United States3420 Posts

July 08 2011 07:57 GMT

yea we've all agreed on the cousin paying 1/3.

as for calculating it by square footage, we tried that and arrived at the same conclusion as cambium, that utility doesnt grow linearly with respect to square footage and that my brother would be paying an unfairly high amount.

Kiante

Australia7069 Posts

July 08 2011 07:59 GMT

You guys aren't looking at the big picture here. just because someone has a bigger room doesn't mean the extra rent should be proportional. You should add on the square feet of all the common rooms in the house and use that in your calculation.

without doing any maths myself, and seeing those values in the upper posts and the plan, along with the condition of the 13x10 user paying 1/3 flat. you have 2/3 of the rent left to pay. theres probably like double the living area than that master bedroom if u include everything. so uhh, split it 65/35 on the last 2/3

so 567 for him, 305 for you. should be fair enough. maybe go 60/40 if he doesn't agree. or do proper maths.

but going directly on room size without incorporating the common area is silly.

DusTerr

2520 Posts

July 08 2011 08:14 GMT

Here's my math for this using 1/3 of combined living area + bedroom area.
house total 1350
3 bedrooms 130+144+266 = 540
shared area 1350-540 = 810 (270 per person)
brother's area 270+266 = 536 (56%)
your area 270+144 = 414 (44%)

rent $1310
cousin paying $437
brother's share $873*56% = $489
your share $873*44% = $384

Cambium

United States16368 Posts

July 08 2011 08:15 GMT

On July 08 2011 16:57 YoUr_KiLLeR wrote:
yea we've all agreed on the cousin paying 1/3.

as for calculating it by square footage, we tried that and arrived at the same conclusion as cambium, that utility doesnt grow linearly with respect to square footage and that my brother would be paying an unfairly high amount.

assuming both of you have agreed to live together regardless of what happens, just bid on it, say $10 increments, it's the easiest way

huameng

United States1133 Posts

July 08 2011 08:18 GMT

#10

He gets, roughly, a 19x14 bedroom and a 19x12 living room. You get a 12x12 bedroom and a 19x12 living room. That works out to him getting 4/3rds-ish of the space you get, so he should pay 4/3rds of your rent. So split it 4/7ths and 3/7ths.

Utility of living space doesn't increase linearly, but I don't think it necessarily always goes slower than linearly either, (a 2x2 bedroom is not worth 4x a 1x1 bedroom) so I'm not sure if something like sqrt(bedroom) gives a good answer. That gives about the same answer though, which is clearly a sign from above that the answer is right.

On July 08 2011 17:15 Cambium wrote:

Show nested quote +

assuming both of you have agreed to live together regardless of what happens, just bid on it, say $10 increments, it's the easiest way

This would probably work here but I think it breaks down if someone cannot afford to pay an even split of the rent. It'd be good to figure out what is fair in general so someone knows if they could reasonably expect to live in this apartment for $350/month.

Gnial

Canada907 Posts

July 08 2011 10:46 GMT

#11

On July 08 2011 17:14 DusTerr wrote:
Here's my math for this using 1/3 of combined living area + bedroom area.
house total 1350
3 bedrooms 130+144+266 = 540
shared area 1350-540 = 810 (270 per person)
brother's area 270+266 = 536 (56%)
your area 270+144 = 414 (44%)

rent $1310
cousin paying $437
brother's share $873*56% = $489
your share $873*44% = $384

This is the method I would use.

I think it is the most accurate (unless you consider bedroom space more valuable than regular living area space, or vice versa...)

100 dollar difference seems reasonable for room size differences of that magnitude.

RubiksCube

Germany259 Posts

July 08 2011 11:35 GMT

#12

1310 / 1350 = basically the price per unit.

0,9703 per unit.

Units per person:

270 (shared) + Room

Cousin: 400
Brother: 536
You: 414

Basically, if you want to be really fair, you should not let your cousin pay 1/3 of the rent, but share the rent in:

Cousin: 388,148 $
Brother: 520,118 $
You: 401,73 $

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