What about common areas? It doesn't make sense to me that someone with a 2x larger bedroom would pay 2x the rent, since the person with the smaller bedroom still has all the same access to the kitchen, living room, and whatever else.
If we're going by square footage, it would make more sense to me to calculate each person's rent as:
(Bedroom area + common area / total number of people) / (total bedroom area + common area)
In short, everyone pays for an equal slice of the common area in addition to their own room.
Were you ever a student living in a stranger's house?
While 'you have access to everything', it sometimes doesn't work like that in practice.
A stranger living with a family has to put up with unwashed dishes/unavailability of kitchen, kids screaming, the man of the house watching/owning the living room after working hours (4pm/5pm to 10pm), the family having supper and cooking, etc.
All of a sudden, the student is basically restricted to living in a 70 sqft room. And usually, these small rooms aren't 'proper rooms' (e.g., no ventilation, no insulation, many times no window or small window).
The reason I say this is because this is exactly my situation. With the exception that I have a 9-to-5, as well. I pay $400 to share a room with someone. A room that is divided by a piece of wood. I have no window and it was built as a pretty poor annex with no A/C or heating reaching my room. I have no window either, as the other side does where my roommate is.
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What about common areas? It doesn't make sense to me that someone with a 2x larger bedroom would pay 2x the rent, since the person with the smaller bedroom still has all the same access to the kitchen, living room, and whatever else.
If we're going by square footage, it would make more sense to me to calculate each person's rent as:
(Bedroom area + common area / total number of people) / (total bedroom area + common area)
In short, everyone pays for an equal slice of the common area in addition to their own room.
Were you ever a student living in a stranger's house?
While 'you have access to everything', it sometimes doesn't work like that in practice.
A stranger living with a family has to put up with unwashed dishes/unavailability of kitchen, kids screaming, the man of the house watching/owning the living room after working hours (4pm/5pm to 10pm), the family having supper and cooking, etc.
All of a sudden, the student is basically restricted to living in a 70 sqft room. And usually, these small rooms aren't 'proper rooms' (e.g., no ventilation, no insulation, many times no window or small window).
The reason I say this is because this is exactly my situation. With the exception that I have a 9-to-5, as well. I pay $400 to share a room with someone. A room that is divided by a piece of wood. I have no window and it was built as a pretty poor annex with no A/C or heating reaching my room. I have no window either, as the other side does where my roommate is.
We're talking about roommates sharing an apartment as equals, not a person renting a single room from the owners of a house.
Fair point