I just have some questions for if you own a house and also have a roommate.

What all are you charging them for? If they pay utilities seperate, do you count HOA dues a utility?



[Edited on November 1, 2006 at 3:12 PM. Reason : durr]

11/1/2006 3:12:24 PM

I owned a house and had a roommate... I charged like 300 plus 1/2 of utils. He bought his own food and paid for any LD phone calls on my home phone.

11/1/2006 3:15:10 PM

and HOA dues?

11/1/2006 3:16:35 PM

How much are your HOA dues?

11/1/2006 3:17:14 PM

I dont have HOA dues.

11/1/2006 3:17:43 PM

My Brother bought a 4Bedroom house. His Mortgage is a little over a thousand a month (he bought it from my dad), but it has an in ground pool and is in a nice neighborhood. He charges his 3 roommates 400 bucks a month and they get cable, internet, utilities included.


I am married so I just charge my wife in well cooked meals and maid service.

11/1/2006 3:21:33 PM

70/mo includes grounds maintenance, trash stuff, etc

11/1/2006 3:22:51 PM

$300, all inclusive

11/1/2006 3:23:40 PM

Before I got married and had roommates, I simply came up with a comparable amount to living in an apartment and made it a flat rate... in my case I charged my two roommates $400 a month each all-inclusive rather than nickel and diming the shit out of them.

11/1/2006 3:25:12 PM

roommate pays me rent and picks up the power bill

i pay the mortgage and the cable bill

we have 3rd bedroom and if anyone stays there i charge them rent and put it towards the mortgage

11/1/2006 3:27:35 PM

She didnt want to pay a flat rate. I'd rather not nickle and dime either, but whatever.

11/1/2006 3:30:11 PM

^

Tell her to pay you in the punani

11/1/2006 3:30:56 PM

Quote :

"She didnt want to pay a flat rate. I'd rather not nickle and dime either"

That sucks. I'll probably have this same scenario in the future and I'm just going to do flat rate. If she insists on not doing flat rate, then go ahead and charge her for hoa.

11/1/2006 3:37:30 PM

i wouldn't live in a place with a HOA.

well, i would for a short term if i planned on moving within a couple of years, but keeping the house as rental property...but not for anywhere i intended to live for very long.

11/1/2006 5:08:06 PM

Nearly all new places have them. Even if its just $10-$20 to pay for the upkeep to the entrance of the development.

11/1/2006 5:21:54 PM

don't charge a roomated HOA fees...I would recommend lumping anything you want for them into the rent payment

11/1/2006 5:25:03 PM

^^the fee isn't the reason i hate them

11/1/2006 5:25:37 PM

I have been doing this for a while now and its just simpler to lump things in to a flat rate. It avoids your roomates bitching at you for leaving the lights on or running the AC/heat in your own house. People tend to get jewish about utils when they are being divided. Put a water conserving shower head in the showers. Put flourescent bulbs in the lights that are frequently left on.

I have always done month to month leases and have always kept the rooms occupied when I wanted them to be. I will even take rent payments weekly if it works better for the person. Just tell the person you only rent at a flat rate, it will be simpler for you and her.

I have tried doing the utillities both ways and can assure you that flat rate is easier and most people prefer it. I have always included HOA in the rent because your renters could not care less about the HOA.

11/1/2006 7:32:02 PM

I own a home and have a roommate. We talked about it and I simply came up with a flat rent payment and asked if he thought it was fair. I am charging him about 200 under what a 1000 sq ft apartment would be.

We split the utilities down the middle, except when he is away, I don't charge him. No fair charging someone when they aren't around, i.e, he deployed for about a month.

This was my thought process on it. If I didn't have a roommate, I would have to pay the entire mortgage and utility bills. With him, I get some extra bank to cover extra payments on the mortgage. My thoughts are HOA, alarm system, and anytype of repairs/upkeep (lawn maint) are my responsibility. If he is here, power, water, cable, and internet we share.


One fair way to make rent up is to take the square footage of the rooms, and divide the mortage up by square feet. You all have the common areas, but his rent could be based on his living quarters. Just a thought someone told me they did when they had multiple people in a house with different size rooms.

When I lived in P'cola, I shared a house with 3 other guys (four bedroom house). We split it up very similar to that. The guy with the masterbed room with own bath paid about 100 more than the other guys in smaller rooms.

[Edited on November 2, 2006 at 12:08 AM. Reason : .]

11/2/2006 12:04:21 AM

gettin rid of the bitch.

Her last rent check bounced and she hasn't gotten rent to me since then (was due nov 10). I go out of town for a week and when I come back she hasnt scooped cat litter (we each have a cat) or taken out the trash and her shit is encroaching everywhere.

*sigh* I need the money, but she aint gettin it to me.

11/26/2006 10:59:40 PM

^ definately time to give her the boot then.

11/27/2006 12:50:38 AM

i pay $375 and half utilities to my roommate/homeowner/boyfriend

HOA is $140

11/27/2006 9:37:15 AM

at least keep going to her bank and trying to cash the check, it will fuck her on fees.

11/27/2006 11:25:55 AM

rent out two rooms
charge them diff. amts (actually renting one the master) + 1/3 utilites

when doing the math on what to charge them, i just added the HOA into the monthly mortgage payment and figured out rent from that

11/27/2006 3:12:35 PM

I own a two bedroom townhome with HOA. I charge $50 less than what it would cost to live in a townhome in the same area as they too have HOA. He splits the utes right down the middle. Granted, i"m paying more than half the total bill but it is my place and I will get the most benefit out of living there in the long run and he will see next to none. Not to mention I have free labor for antying I want to make additions and improvements to the place. overall it works out.

11/27/2006 3:18:59 PM

you shoulda listened to me and charged her more....then you could spend all this extra money cleaning up after her and still have loot left over.

i think you should charge a flat rate and utilities are split evenly. if it's a fair accomodation, everyone uses about the same. the big issue, however, is the seasonal difference in utility rates, so you need to split those so you aren't getting shafted hard in the summer and winter.

11/27/2006 4:54:20 PM

^ You can actually have progress energy charge you a flat rate per month as well, program you sign up for. Last i looked at it though to do it you may loose a small amount of money so overall more expensive (I could be wrong, i looked a ocuple years ago and not that closely). Which might be beneficial in this situation (basically they determine each year how much you should pay on average and you pay that).

11/28/2006 8:45:24 AM

did you guys write up a formal contract / lease for the persons renting out the extra rooms.
i have the money to buy right now but i dont want to stretch myself out

i have a friend who has been married for a year. he makes almost 100k a year but she makes retail wages and they live in a 350K house. Awesome as fuck house but they live college poor.

they dont even have cable and still lacks some furniture. i dont want to put myself into this type of situation

11/28/2006 9:25:16 AM

You're the homeowner, you pay the HOA fees.

11/28/2006 11:15:33 AM

what would you guys charge your girlfriend if she was trying to move in? for some reason, half doesnt seem fair. mortgage is gonna get paid either way, so how about having her buy "stuff" - i know this sounds bad, but like pots and pans for the kitchen - more towels, hahaha, shit you dont have cause youre a guy, ya know?

and if it doesnt work out then i wouldnt have any moral dilemma about tossing her since im not financially obligated. man how do you guys get married, thats some scary shit from a financial standpoint. gotta really trust someone i guess

11/28/2006 12:10:23 PM

tara and i split the mortgage and bills by our salary ratio. i make about twice as much as her, so i pay 2/3 and she pays 1/3. i end up buying groceries and she pays for the dogs expenses. then we just take turns buying new pots, pans, household items, etc.

and about the financial part of getting married, thats probaly my biggest fear. im very picky with my money, so i dont know how welcome i am to the idea of just sharing everything. ive heard about people having a joint account with individual accounts as well. one big pot of money for all the big costs, but then a seperate account for personal things. i may like that idea.


[Edited on November 28, 2006 at 12:14 PM. Reason : sdf]

11/28/2006 12:13:14 PM

Quote :

"one big pot of money for all the big costs, but then a seperate account for personal things. i may like that idea. "

my mom and dad right there

11/28/2006 12:18:55 PM

yeah that gets into a whole other line of thinking for me that has nothing to do with this thread. lets just say im pretty cautious/anxious about that as well. just as much as i'm looking forward to it, part of me really isnt.

11/28/2006 12:22:17 PM

make yourself a company and you can write off the difference between his payment and the mortgage payment as a loss on your taxes.

[Edited on November 28, 2006 at 12:45 PM. Reason : i'm pretty sure.]

11/28/2006 12:45:44 PM

Quote :

"what would you guys charge your girlfriend if she was trying to move in? for some reason, half doesnt seem fair. mortgage is gonna get paid either way, so how about having her buy "stuff" - i know this sounds bad, but like pots and pans for the kitchen - more towels, hahaha, shit you dont have cause youre a guy, ya know? "

When my bf bought a house, he wanted me to come live with him - I was iffy on it for a while. I moved in because he wasn't going to make me pay rent, and that really helped with stress/amount I have to work (I work lots now because I like my jobs)/amount in loans I had to take out.

The official agreement is that as far as household stuff, I buy groceries.
In reality, I probably buy 2/3 the groceries, most of the cleaning/laundry supplies, and not much else.

I know I have it good with him. I don't feel guilty, though, about it because the only extra costs he incurred by having me move in is on the electric bill. I also go out of my way to make sure he's paying the least possible amount on anything - be it bills, groceries, major purchases...what have you.

It's not equitable right now, but the expectations we have for my finances after graduation are pretty realistic, and things will be made right after graduation.

He's good about not lording his largesse, and I'm good about not taking advantage of it.

[Edited on November 28, 2006 at 1:31 PM. Reason : doesn't sound like yours will be a permanent fixture though...so +grain of salt]

11/28/2006 1:30:42 PM

Quote :

"thats some scary shit from a financial standpoint. gotta really trust someone i guess"

And soberfan, you're a bigger man than me. If i had my gf move in with me, bills would be split evenly and the mortgage would probably be at the same rate I charge my friend now. however, if i was married I would definitely have to do mortgage and everything else down the middle, because if we split up she gets half anyways.

11/28/2006 2:55:19 PM

Quote :

"doesn't sound like yours will be a permanent fixture though...so +grain of salt"

why does it sound so negative to you?

11/28/2006 3:18:31 PM

It didn't, really.

But this is what made me think that:

Quote :

"and if it doesnt work out then i wouldnt have any moral dilemma about tossing her since im not financially obligated. man how do you guys get married, thats some scary shit from a financial standpoint. gotta really trust someone i guess"

You could say I erroneously equated permanence with marriage
And I apologize. I know better than that

[Edited on November 28, 2006 at 3:41 PM. Reason : poids\]

11/28/2006 3:40:53 PM

i just bought a house and have a friend moving in... he is going to be paying $450 plus 1/2 the utilities.... he does get the use of a 2-car garage though... no HOA dues

11/28/2006 5:30:05 PM

$500, all inclusive

11/28/2006 7:15:35 PM

Quote :

"You're the homeowner, you pay the HOA fees."

exactly, the renters don't own the home.............i can't think of a reason that making them pay a portion of the HOA fee would be remotely fair

11/28/2006 9:29:27 PM

well are you gonna take off the rent when homeowners insurance is included in the mortgage payment? gonna take off when a lightbulb goes out?

im too nice

11/29/2006 12:49:28 AM

Quote :

"one big pot of money for all the big costs, but then a seperate account for personal things. i may like that idea."

That's what I plan on doing when I get married. You'll have the money for major expenses, and separetely have money to see as each one sees fit. That way I won't get mad at him for blowing money on a PS3 or something because it will be out of his personal stash, and vice versa.

11/29/2006 2:07:16 PM

If I bought a house and tried to nickel dime my roommates, they'd tell me to fuck off and move out =P.

11/29/2006 2:23:17 PM