what's cheaper than a studio?

Splitting a several-bedroom apartment several ways.

For example, where I live [1] a studio is $1,700 but one room in a 3br is $1,100.

[1] http://www.jefftk.com/apartment_prices

And then you have several more people living in your dwellings. Not everyone is a student anymore.

I'm 33, have been working professionally for 10 years and have had roommates the whole time. Different ones, too.

Unless you're strongly introverted, and/or suffer from social anxiety, having roommates is a great way to a) meet new people and b) save lots of money.

    Not everyone is a student anymore.

I'm 31, married with two kids, and we have housemates. It's nice having more people around, in addition to being cheaper.

(We've lived in four places since getting married, one without housemates and the other three with. We've definitely preferred the latter.)

Depends on where you live. When I looked into splitting a place here in LA, it was only $100 less than if I stayed in my studio, with less amenities. I'm lucky, as I'm rent-controlled, but even people I know that live in 4-bedroom houses in not great areas are paying only a little less.

It sounds like rent control isn't making this a fair comparison? We'd want to compare going out and renting a new studio vs 1/N of an Nbr.

I see your point. I think at market rate a couple years ago, my studio would be around $1500/mo, 1 bd at $1750, and 2 bd at ~2100. So yes, there could be several hundred saved.

The "best" deal I've found in LA is when you have a partner and can split the one-bedroom with them.

> Um, what's cheaper than a studio?

Having roommates! Rent a victorian with a few roommates in West Oakland. One train stop to San Francisco, way less than 3k a month.

Room/housemates, an N-bedroom's rent/N is always less than a 1-bedroom (for N > 1)

It completely depends on the supply of the particular city. SFBA has lots of split level houses that were meant for families a few generations ago and very few studios.

Many in this thread seem flabbergasted that a studio would be expensive or could ever be cheap, it's probably based on whatever market they're used to.

Fair points. I was thinking strictly in terms of single living but I may have misunderstood.