Loud Sex And The Noise Calculator

Hey all – just posted an article on Forbes all about loud sex. That survey was also used to create the new Noisy Neighbors calculator.

Very few survey respondents actually would offer to pay cash to a roommate based on disrupting them. It’s a more of a guide to the value of the appropriate gift for, or to how much value your apartment would lose on the open market if you knew how frequent the disturbances would be.

The way we calculate the number comes from linearly extrapolating loud sex to all other cases.  Specifically, loud sex is worth (per incident) some number we get an average of from our survey. We take this as a fraction of the average daily rent contribution of our survey respondents. Lastly, we linearly extrapolate this percentage from the average badness of each sound type in the “how disruptive question” described in this article.

Make sure you use your personal rent contribution instead of the total rent for the apartment, or the number will be several times too high!

If you have questions about the procedure, feel free to use our contact form and I will respond as soon as I can (often well within 24 hours).

When Things Go Super-Wrong: Roommates and The Law

Here at Splitwise, we are focused on simplicity, ease-of-use, and trust. If you owe your roommates money,  you can use our service to keep track of that. If you want to figure out how much they should owe you, we offer fairness calculators and blog content. If you want to settle a dispute using us as your mediator, you can email Dear Splitwise.

But sometimes, things get a little more complicated then friends settling debts. For instance: your roommate broke the lease and the landlord is coming after you for the money. Or say the landlord won’t do anything about the broken toilet which is rapidly making your apartment unusable. In times like these, what you need is legal advice, not fairness advice.  Continue reading When Things Go Super-Wrong: Roommates and The Law

When Three People Share A Room

Dear Splitwise,

What if more than 3 people are in a room? Your rent calculator does not have a setting for this.

Our apartment has two bedrooms. The first is a guest bedroom (113 sq ft) being shared by two people, with a guest bath that also has access to the living room. The master bedroom (124 square feet) is being shared by three people, and has its own “private” bathroom. There is a living room (126 sq ft) with a fireplace, a balcony, and a normal sized kitchen.

Thanks if you could help me decide what to charge for each of us 5 apartmentmates.

With gratitude,
Roommates à trois Continue reading When Three People Share A Room

See all debts at once

Ryan pushed out a mini-update this week for people who manage large apartments and big group trips. The feature lets you see who everyone owes, not just for yourself.

We noticed that if not everyone in your apartment was a registered user, it was hard to tell the big picture of who-owes who.  This is helpful if you manage finances for your apartment, and send out an email each month to settle up all the debts. Or if you go on a big trip and don’t want to bother registering every last person’s email.

This feature doesn’t look very pretty yet, but we felt it was important to have it, and we will be improving it over the next month or two.

I’ve been hearing a lot via email about international currencies recently, which is awesome. They’re coming right up! It’s our top priority once we get mobile apps out the door. Let us know if you want to make sure your currency is included.

For what it’s worth, I will probably be switching my blogging schedule to Monday and Wednesday from now on. With the exception being a post tomorrow.  Till then!

How To Share A Broker’s Fee

Today we answer our first question emailed to Dear Splitwise.

Dear Splitwise,

How does one split the broker’s fee fairly in a NYC apartment? If someone has their own bathroom, should they pay more, or is it split evenly by all roommmates?

Thanks,
Broke and Broker

Dear Broke and Broker,

It’s true that in New York, Boston, and other major metro areas you often have to pay a broker’s fee to the real estate agent to get an apartment, even one you would share with roommates. Which stinks.

So, Broke and Broker, your question is: if the bedrooms are different enough in quality that one bedroom should have a higher rent, the question is, should that person also pay a bigger share of the broker’s fee? Great question! Continue reading How To Share A Broker’s Fee

Guests in bedrooms

I neglected to post a link here to my most recent Forbes article yesterday – the last in the three-part series on guests. In it, we consider the merits of cold mutton and show some data on the question of what is fair for people living in your guest room for a long period of time. Check it out!

How much to charge a couch crasher

Image by Venturist via Flickr
How long before you ask her to pitch-in?

Your friend asked on July Fourth if she could crash on your couch while she looked for an apartment. You didn’t mind her doing it and you didn’t ask her to pay anything. But now it’s August and she still hasn’t found a place. You don’t mind letting her stay for free, but your roommate is starting to get cranky and there’s nowhere else for her to go. You feel like if she chipped in towards the rent, that might help smooth things over, but when is long enough to start asking for a contribution? And how much money should you ask for?
Continue reading How much to charge a couch crasher

Announcing: “Dear Splitwise”

Splitwise is all about making sharing with your friends, housemates, and family easier. Since we’re fairly nerdy, we like to do that by making calculators that address common fairness situations. But sometimes, the situation is just too specific for a calculator. Since we started with the rent calculator in February, we’ve received several emails asking about the specifics of a given roommate situation.

If you have a fairness or roommmate situation that just does not fit into a calculator, email us at ask@splitwise.com. Not only do we answer really, really fast (usually within a few hours at most), we will study the question, consult with experts, or do a survey to solve your conundrum. Then we’ll turn it into a blog post for the amusement of others. Think of it like a relationship advice column for your sharing questions, answered by nerds with charts.

The Guest Calculator

I just posted the second article in the guest series over at Forbes, “How Much To Charge A Couch-Crasher” over at Forbes. Please feel free to indulge your inner survey-nerd and give it a look.

In the article, I introduce a method for charging your guests who crash on the couch for a week or longer. It’s called the Guest calculator and you can view it right now on Splitwise.com and from within the Splitwise interface.

I’m also posting the full-text of the first article about guests, “How Much To Charge Your Roommate’s Girlfriend”, on this blog, so that you can read it all here. That article has also been featured on AskMen.com and MSNBC, so if you found it first elsewhere – um, welcome! If I post content first somewhere else, I will try to post it here within a week or so.