Moving In With Friends

Moving in with your mates is a rite of passage. It’s a great stepping stone from your parents place to your own space. Spending a couple of hours with someone is very different to living with them. Before you sign the lease, have a chat and ask the hard questions

– the last thing you want is to move in and find out that your best mate lulls themselves to sleep by singing Barbara Streisand tribute songs.

Before You Move In

Start at the beginning and work out where you all want to live. Is it close for everyone to get to work and visit family? Is public transport easily available?

Once you know roughly where you’re headed, work out what you want and what you can afford; a house or a unit. It’s worthwhile researching – if you take an extra person, you could afford a bigger, better place.

Iron out who takes responsibility for the lease. Are you all going on the lease or is one person better to take all the responsibility.

Rent is not a static amount and can increase so make sure you’re all comfortable with an annual rent increase and that you’ve built in a buffer to afford utilities, food, entertainment and transport.

Practically speaking, you might have very different habits and schedules to your friends. If one of you is a shift worker and the other one teaches bagpipes from home, you may be incompatible.

Once You Move In

When you find a place, make sure it has enough facilities for everyone. Is one bathroom between 3 people practical? Is there enough cupboard space? If there’s a car spot, put a roster together to keep it fair.

Not all food is fair game. As tasty as gluten, dairy, sugar and wheat free biscuits sound, odds are, they weren’t bought as a house gift. Whilst communal groceries are an excellent way to save money and reduce waste, make sure you let your flatties know which treats are sacred.

Watching the footy with your mates with a couple of beers is a great pastime but you probably don’t want to be doing it every weekend. Don’t be a house hog; share the space.

No one likes to clean the toilet, let alone a communal one. The fairest way to keep a share house clean is to clean up after yourself and if you can all afford it, pay a cleaner to come once a month to give the house a once over.