The big room
Light, floor, maybe a balcony
Sealed-bid room auction
The big room shouldn't cost the same as the closet.
Splitting rent evenly is easy and unfair. Arguing about it is fair and exhausting. Instead, everyone privately says what each room is worth to them, and the math finds an assignment and a set of rents that nobody would trade away.
The middle room
A real bedroom, nothing extra
The small one
Same rent, if you split evenly
Step 1
List rooms and roommates
Set the total rent, describe each room, and add everyone's email. Works for 2 roommates or 10.
Step 2
Everyone bids privately
Each person gets their own emailed link and divides the rent across the rooms. No one sees anyone else's numbers.
Step 3
Get a split nobody envies
One calculation assigns the rooms and sets each rent. Everyone can check for themselves that they got the best deal available to them.
Try it: three roommates, $3,000 rent
Drag any slider and watch the rents settle.
Alex badly wants the balcony; Casey barely cares which room they get.
Alex says each room is worth
always adds to $3,000Blair says each room is worth
always adds to $3,000Casey says each room is worth
always adds to $3,000The split
Alex → Big room, balcony
$1,300+$200 ahead
Blair → Middle room
$900+$200 ahead
Casey → Small room, no window
$800+$200 ahead
Nobody would rather have someone else's room at someone else's rent.
Why bidding beats negotiating
An even split ignores that rooms differ. Haggling works, but it rewards whoever is most stubborn and leaves everyone wondering whether they got played.
A sealed auction sidesteps both problems. Because nobody sees anyone else's bids, there is nothing to react to and no war of attrition. And because the result is envy-free, each person can look at every other room, at its final rent, and confirm they would still rather have their own. That is a much stronger promise than “we all agreed.”
How the rents are computed — including what this method can and cannot promise.