How To Find A Roommate To Help Pay Rent- Episode 16

On episode 5 of the WeeklyBagel podcast, we explored the reasonability of having a roommate or not. At the end of the episode, I left you to reach your own conclusion. This is because you know what your needs are, better than I do.

The thing is in today’s world, it is getting hard for some young working class adults to afford a roof over their heads. Partially due to the increasing cost of living, partly the slowly increase in wage rate year by year. One cannot expect to perform miracle with some of our monthly wages.

Would you agree?

Hence, why more than 6.8 million American households are on shared housing. The biggest part of this population are young working class adults aged 24 to 34 years of age. It is about 1.6 million or 23% of the above mentioned 6.8 million households. This is according to National Association of Home Builders¹.

After this biggest group of house sharers, comes the next group which comprise of college students aged 18 to 24 years. This is 17% of the 6.8 million people, which comes out to about 1.2 million young adults. I am not surprised with this group being the second largest due to the fact most of them are in college and part-time workers.

Either way, the necessity of finding a roommate sometimes cannot be ignored. It is my reason of showing the above statistics. On this episode, I discussed about how to find a roommate. Not only how you could find a roommate, but also how you could keep one by minimizing conflicts.

Where To Find A Roommate?

You could use a roommate finder website to find one. There are a few hundred of these legit websites in the US, which serve the needs of anyone looking for a roommate. I recently used one during my surgical tech travel contract in a small Texan town.

Without the app, I probably would not have been able to get a place easily. I had not been to the town before prior to the assignment. Having mentioned that, here is where to find a roommate.

1. Roomies

Roomies.com is one of the safe apps to use for finding a roommate. It is actually the one I used to find a place to stay during my travel contract. This is because people with houses looking to rent furbished rooms, put up their rooms there for rent.

I was lucky to find a place for $650 monthly throughout my contract period in the little town. So, how does roomies.com work?

It charges you $25 for a period of time to advertise what you are looking for there. It is for both renter and rentee. The best part of it is you can pay additional money for background check.

Personally, I recommend not paying the rent until you have gone and see the place for yourself. This is to avoid being scammed by anyone. In fact, I made an episode – How To Avoid Apartment Rental Scams. I believe this was episode 7. It is worth to listen to, since rental scams are quite the rampant nowadays.

You can list your room there. Just know that it will cost you. So, be sure to keep up with the days you bought, because your ability to post is taken as soon as your membership expires.

2. SpareRoom

You can put up your roommate search on SpareRoom. This is another great website for you to find a roommate. I like the design since it is built simply like Craigslist.

So, how do you go about listing a room on there?

Just create an account. Then, create a listing with what you want out of a roommate. This includes the rent price, room number availability and other things you need to know about the space.

One thing I like about this compared to Roomies.com, is any person looking for a room can get additional details of what kind of rental space he or she is getting. Unlike Roomies where people listing rooms for rent rarely share a lot unless contacted, SpareRoom has the following details below:

Rent price
Term length. This includes minimum and maximum rent term required.
Extra cost. This includes other hidden cost of renting the apartment or room. Examples are not limited to deposit, utilities or application fee.
Amenities presence like furbished room, wifi and such.
The number of people sharing the house or apartment with the room numbers. This includes the presence of pets, smokers and other roommates.
Gender of person listing the room for rent.
What they are looking for in the new roommate.

As you can see from the above, any person looking for a room has most of his or her questions answered. I always recommend you put as many details about the room as possible, so people will not waste your time. There are a lot of people on the internet who will do that to you.

Finally, be sure to do a background check on any possible roommate. This is due to the fact that there are a lot of crazy people out there. I advise you have someone with you, when giving someone a tour of the room you are trying to rent out. Remember these are strangers right off the internet. Always prioritize safety.

3. Roomster

This is another one where you can list your room for rent. The thing with this website is it helps you create a listing and help you do the contract or lease agreement with the roommate. I have not used it before, but I recommend you use your judgement dealing with potential roommates on there.

There are a lot of crazy people out there.

I know I keep mentioning it, but I have heard some nasty roommate-from-hell tales. I do not want you to experience a bad roommate. Hence, the emphasis I keep laying about doing your due diligence.

How Long Does It Take To Find A Roommate?

So, how long does it take to find a roommate on these platforms?

Well, that depends on the size of users on the platform. Not only the size of users, but also who is looking to get a roommate in your zip code. Personally, the room I rented during my contract assignment in the middle of nowhere Texas took me two days to find. There were only three room listings in the whole town.

If I had tried to find a roommate in my home city- San Antonio where I have currently have my own place, I bet it would not have taken that long. This is due to many listings in the city. It is a big city with a few million people.

My advice to you is to focus on getting someone good as a roommate, rather than filling up the room quickly. It would not make sense to rent a room quickly, only to find out the person is not a good match. This is especially, when you get someone who you have to literally beg to pay his or her fair share of bills every month.

How Do I Safely Find A Roommate?

I am sure by now, you have picked up on me stressing safety above everything else. This is because I do not want you to get a roommate who will make life miserable for you. So, how do you safely find a roommate?

Firstly, I want you to have a plan on how to sniff out trouble makers. You can do this by doing interviews meant to weed out non-qualifiers. Request at least six months of pay slip to back their ability to pay rent.

Do not go the route of using a bank statement to justify ability to pay bills. Some people are really smart at faking these documents. If they are going to use the size of their bank accounts to justify ability to pay bills, then tell them to pay the entire rental period upfront.

Otherwise, call employers to verify employment. Also, run some background checks on them. I want you to understand, my dear reader, these are strangers. You want to make sure you are not going to live with a dangerous person.

Next, always discuss splitting rent and draft a notarized rental agreement on it. I talked about this in great detail on Episode 15- How To Split Rent With Roommates. It is a great episode to listen to, if you are going to be sharing your house or apartment with other adults.

Why is this important?

Your peace and safety matter. You are already working hard as a fellow young working class adult. The last thing you want are additional burdens on your shoulders created by an irresponsible grown man or woman.

References: