What a roommate saves you in 50 US cities

Derek Miller
Updated

High rents are forcing more and more people to live with roommates. The Census estimates that 5.8 million Americans currently have a roommate. The benefits from living with another person vary from city to city. In some cities, it may not be worth the hassle. In other places however, especially where homes are unaffordable, living with a roommate can save you thousands of dollars. Below we rank the cities where living with a roommate can save you the most money.

Tired of splurging on rent? Maybe it’s time to check out mortgage rates and buy.

In order to find the best places to live with a roommate, we compared the cost of renting a one-bedroom apartment with the cost of renting a two-bedroom. The difference between them was how we came up with our rankings. See our data and methodology below to see where we got our data and how we put it together.

This is SmartAsset’s third annual study on how much a roommate saves you. Read the 2016 version here.

Key Findings

  • Big savings – Across our top 10, the average resident could save just under $10,000 per year by switching from living alone to living with a roommate.

  • Costly California – California has five of the top 10 cities where it pays to live with a roommate. The Golden State is known for its expensive cities, especially around the Bay Area, so this isn’t particularly surprising.

  • Best places to live alone – If you really want to live alone and not feel guilty about the money you aren’t saving, look at cities like Tucson, Arizona or Wichita, Kansas. In both those cities you save less than $250 per month by living with a roommate.

Check out the top cities in the slideshow below:

Data and Methodology

In order to find the cities where a roommate saves you the most, we looked at data on 50 U.S. cities. We compared them across the following two metrics:

  • Average rent for a one-bedroom dwelling. Data comes from Rent Jungle and covers rent prices from 2016-2017.

  • Average rent for a two-bedroom dwelling. Data comes from Rent Jungle and covers rent prices from 2016-2017.

We measured how much a person could save in each city by moving from a one-bedroom apartment to a two-bedroom with a roommate. To do this we compared the cost of the one-bedroom to half the cost of the two-bedroom to account for living with a roommate. We ranked the cities according to the places where the savings were the largest.

Tips for Living With a Roommate

While living with a roommate is great on the wallet it can cause some problems. To keep the living situation drama-free and the costs low here are some tips.

Be sure to choose your roommate carefully. Since you and your roommate will be sharing the cost of the apartment you will want to be sure they can handle their half of the rent. That means making financial stability a priority when you are choosing your roommate.

It’s also a good idea to make sure all parties’ names are on the lease. If only your name is on the lease, it may put you on the hook if your roommate cannot cover rent.

You and your roommate may want to consider tracking all shared expenses, for example utilities, internet or even food. By keeping track of who is spending what you can stay organized on payments and avoid awkward financial conflicts.

Data analysis for the article was done by Nick Wallace.

Questions about our study? Contact us at press@smartasset.com.

Photo credit: ©iStock.com/FangXiaNuo

The post What a Roommate Saves You in 50 U.S. Cities – 2017 Edition appeared first on SmartAsset Blog.

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