Pros to Living in a House With Your Friends Instead of an Apartment

By Francine Fluetsch on May 31, 2017

This article is brought to you by CORT Furniture Rental. We take the hassle out of furnishing your new place so you can do more important things like read this article. Learn more about why furniture rental is the best way to get a great looking apartment.

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When deciding to live off campus, there are a lot of things to consider, including who you want to live with and in what type of a place! Students commonly go for apartments if they are trying to live with just one or two people, but if you are finding yourself with a big group on your hands, a house might be the way to go.

The per month rent might look a bit more expensive at first glance, but if you have enough people, you’ll be able to cut down the cost and have more space! This option is great for parties of four or more. Here are some pros to living in a house with your friends versus an apartment.

More bang for your buck

As mentioned, when you have a big group that you want to live with (we are going to consider 4+ a big group), you’ll actually be saving money by splitting the rent more ways and also splitting all the bills and items that you need for your house.

Let’s say that the five of you rack up a water bill of $150 (in California, this definitely isn’t hard considering water restrictions). While this amount would be insane if only two or three of you had to pay it, the five of you would bring it to $30 each, which is pretty manageable. You can all regulate each other to keep the utilities low, but you’ll always be able to split five ways, so it helps keep the cost low.

You can also split the cost of furniture and décor more ways. Houses and apartments can be daunting at first because most places will be rented to you unfurnished, so that first move-in can become rather expensive. If there are more of you, you can draw up a list of all the things you need and split them all up depending on who wants to get what, and keep score of prices to make sure that everyone spends about the same.

The more expensive things, like furniture, can get a bit more awkward to split up, considering buying a whole couch can be in the upper hundreds, so keep in mind that with more of you, it might be even more cost efficient if you all split the cost on some rental furniture that you all agree upon.

This way, you can get the living room and dining room furnished while all paying the exact same price. Renting also does away with that debate of who will get to keep the furniture when it is time to move out! You can also use this for your rooms, or opt to pay for those separately and only rent the common areas together.

More space

Opting for a house gives you more privacy, both as a group and for your own personal space. Most houses will have a full yard, instead of a porch or nothing at all in an apartment; more rooms to inhabit, versus a crammed number in a typical apartment you will find in a college town; some distance for your neighbors instead of sharing a wall with them, like in an apartment.

While getting a house will require most of you to share rooms, the rooms should be bigger than those small rooms that apartments are usually equipped with, so sharing doesn’t seem as bad. Plus, with the amount of people you have, you’ll be getting more space in your personal room and shared spaces without paying as much as you would in an apartment with fewer people.

Houses also come with at least two/three bathrooms on average, so getting ready in the morning with a bunch of people won’t be as hectic. Some apartments only have one bathroom, so if you live with three other people, the fighting over the bathroom in the morning will get old real fast, and will make you feel like you are living with your siblings again.

Extra perks

Houses are more likely to have a personal garage space or two complete with a driveway compared to apartments, and having this space is super helpful for students who have crazy schedules, considering apartment parking tends to be free for all and always gets booked up when you need it.

Even if none of you have a car, you can still use the garage space for storage of all the stuff you end up accumulating over the years at schools. Houses are also more likely to have a washer and dryer in unit, and apartments are going to feel like the dorms where you either have a laundry section that you share with other residents, or where you have to drag your stuff to a laundromat to wash it, which is hard to fit in on a busy college schedule.

These are a few things to consider when debating between opting for a house or an apartment with your friends!

Looking for an easy way to furnish your off-campus apartment? Renting furniture from CORT saves you time and money. See how easy it is to get great looking furniture without breaking the bank.

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