While sharing a house is a great opportunity to enjoy memorable moments and form lifelong friendships, there are also ‘ground rules’ needed to ensure that your time in the property is a smooth and enjoyable one. These ‘ground rules’ will also help reassure worried parents that you are managing to cope!
There’s no doubt there is a lot of demand for student homes, but there’s a wide range of choice available from one bedroom student flats – ideal for those who want to share with a partner – to much larger houses that most people tend to associate with student living.
There are upsides and downsides to sharing big properties; you’ll never be alone is one of the upsides, while the downside is, you’ll never be alone. Some of us crave peace and quiet for when we need to study but there may be distractions and parties at various times that make sharing a student house a slightly annoying at times.
This is one reason why it’s important to choose who to share a house with and not just choose people who are desperate to live in a student property as you will all need to get along and agree to abide by any house rules, such as cleaning, washing the dishes and doing communal shopping.
Students sharing a home
These may appear to be trivial issues but imagine lots of students sharing a home and no-one washing up, cleaning or even buying teabags and milk, it’s a recipe for fall outs.
There should be no need for a peacemaker in any student home since you all should be friends and get along without this sort of intervention.
Which brings us to the issue of the rapper Lil Yachty who shares his house with 10 friends. That’s right, he has opted to live in a big house with 10 other people because he does not like ‘being alone’.
The rapper recently told a radio show that he shares his home with friends from his school days.
One reason for this, he explained, is that when he’s with his childhood mates he often forgets that he’s a famous hip-hop star, which isn’t the case when he’s with music industry friends and it’s a way for him to relax.
Another reason why he enjoys sharing a house with so many people is that he tours quite a lot and is away recording, performing and being interviewed by journalists, so he often feels isolated and looks forward to returning home where his friends have his best interests at heart.
Along with sharing the bills in a student property, having the opportunity of sharing a quality home with friends is a great way to be grounded for your studies, so you can focus effectively on landing a quality degree which is the purpose of attending uni and investing so much in your education.
Landlords offer all-inclusive bills that cover their business utilities
Another way to enjoy a headache-free student lifestyle is to have someone organise the bills, for example, getting the gas and electricity connected, and dealing with payments though growing numbers of landlords offer all-inclusive bills that cover their business utilities.
This means students can budget effectively because they know what their utility bills will be every month when sharing a student property and the offering from Glide means that these utilities can be arranged before students move into their home and they will be billed individually for their utility costs.
The big attraction for landlords and letting agents is that Glide can also arrange their business utilities for the landlord to offer the all-inclusive rent to help attract quality student tenants.
Alternatively, students could arrange for the utilities to be connected and contact providers directly and then arrange for the payment every month or every quarter, but everyone in the property is responsible for paying the bill. So if someone does not pay, cannot afford to pay or refuses to do so means the shortfall will need to be met.
This will create an uncomfortable situation but with Glide this will be avoided because each student will be responsible for paying their bill and not for other students living there.
Accessing student broadband deals
Students sharing a house will also be interested in accessing student broadband deals that meet their needs.
There’s no doubt there is a wide range of deals on offer from big-name providers, but Glide can also offer broadband and include it as part of the monthly bill. Landlords and agents may also be interested in this offering as well.
For those who decide to shop around for student broadband, then it may be tempting to be taken in by adverts from large firms that promise superfast fibre broadband connection and ‘awesome telly’.
One offering says students have the power of ‘living your best student life’ when signing up to their offer.
However, what many students may not appreciate is that this 12-month offering means you’ll be tied into a contract when you are not living in the property, but will still be required to pay for the broadband.
Want to chat to us more about how we can make bills easy? drop us an email on glide@glide.co.uk