I am moving into a 4 bedroom/ 1 1/2 bathroom house that has a monthly rent of 3550.
There are five girls and I am sharing a room with one other girl. The
biggest room by two feet has one closet and a tile floor. The next
biggest room is carpeted and has two large closets and an adjacent
half bathroom that is also accessible through the house hallway. The
next two rooms are the same size, but smaller than the second. I want
advice on how the rent should be split between the five girls in two
scenarios. 1-if we take the bedroom with the two closets and bathroom.
2-If we take the room with the tile and 1 closet. While I realize
there is no legal way to settle this, I want to know what is most
normal in a situation like this.

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Request for Question Clarification by czh-ga on 24 Jul 2006 19:20 PDT

Hello star85-ga,

What is your current thinking about what would be a fair way to price
the 5-way split of the rental? Are all of you moving in at the same
time or are some of the five girls already living in the house and
looking for additional roommates? Do the other girls have opinions
about how to split the rent? Thanks.

~ czh ~

I'd get each girl to write down what they think would be fair rent for
each room (for each scenario), then take the average (but discounting
any outliers).

The value of a room is not the only thing to consider.  Since there
will be 2 of you living in that room, there will also be 2 of you
sharing the kitchen and other common areas (including a bathroom if
you choose the room without its own bathroom.
I've found it somewhat fair in a 3 bedroom for the rents to be 30% for
people with their own bedroom and 20% each to share a room.  In a 4
bed, that would look like this:
22% for all the others and 17% for each you and your roomie.  That
would put the rent for your room at 34% which is $1207 ($603.50 each)
and the rent for the other rooms at $781.  Of course one of the other
girls will be getting a nicer room so it should be slightly different
than I've stated above, perhaps $605 for you and your roomie (in a
nice room)
$820 for the other nice room
$760 for the other 2 rooms

In your negotiations, be sure to mention that if you didn't have a
roomie then everyone would each be paying about $125 more.  You 2
sharing a room is a nice perk for everyone in the house as long as the
kitchen isn't too crowded.

Whatever you decide, put it in writing with reference to the contract
with the landlord!
Depending on who has signed that contract, the payments are either to
those persons, or to the landlord if you are all on the contract.

While you are at it, you might consider including a passage about the
responsibility of anyone moving out to find a new party, subject to
the agreement of the others.

No legal advice, I've just seen a few questions here about leasing and
roommate problems.

Split the rent evenly but the girls who share a room take the one that
has the half bathroom and get it all to themselves.

Take the square footage of the bedrooms and closets, divide that by
the rent to get rent per square foot, thus people with the bigger room
needs to pay more rent.

Handy, you are only accounting for the room in the bedrooms/bathrooms.
 You failed to take into account the fact that 2 people in 1 of the
bedrooms will also be using all the other room in the house (kitchen,
dining room, living room, parking spaces...)

Mark,  Would you be willing to pay $710 to share a room and have
slightly more access to a 1/2 bath while others in the house have
their own room for the same price?  Essencially you are saying that
half access to a half bath is worth the same amount as the difference
between sharing a room and having your own room.  That is way
overvalued in my oppinion.

Since there are two of you, you should take the room with the two closets. 

Ignore your friend's rent for now.

If the rent was divided equally, each tenant would pay 887,50. 443,75
for the bedroom and 443,75 for the shared living areas (kitchen,
lounge...).

Each tenant must pay 443,75 minimum (for shared areas).

The tenants of the two small rooms must pay only half for the room ->
221,88 and so in total pay: 665,63 each

The tenants of the big rooms must pay the full amount -> 887,50

665,63
665,63
887,50
887,50
-------
3106,26

which still leaves 443,74 in unpaid rent. This is almost *exactly*
what each of the other girls paid for the shared living areas. You
have already paid for the room (how you share the room is between the
two of you). Your room-mate must just pay for the shared living areas
-> 443,74. Almost the same as anyone else. So to be fair you will have
to pay much more than anyone else (887,5 + 443,74 = 1331,24), although
you might not like this!

If you think your rent is too high, you must then move to one of the
smaller rooms and pay 1109,37 (665,63 + 443,74)