If you are divvying up the rent equally, I'd flip a coin.

Person with the Master pays more rent, or switch every 6 months. It's the only way to do it fairly so resentment doesn't start growing. Good luck!

We are splitting up the rent equally, so I think you're right about just flipping a coin.
Neither of us want to pay more per month, and switching after 6 mos would just be too much work!

Thanks so much for your advice!

If you are friends, this is the end of a lovely friendship.

No matter who loses the coin toss, they will feel they are not getting their money's worth. So look for another area of compensation to balance it out. For example, the loser gets the small bedroom + _______________(fill in the blank).

Otherwise, switch out the rooms, or you will be paying more when you have to find a new roommate in a few months.

Are you both on the lease? If only one is, they should be in the master, since they have the legal obligation.

Or, is one person supplying all the living room furniture and kitchen stuff? Or a far greater share? Then maybe they get the master bedroom.

and seriously consider switching out. I got the bigger bedroom in my apt, bcs I paid the deposit completely and I loaned my roomie her first month's rent (she didn't have that much saved up in advance). Also, my name was on the lease.

I also ended up spending more time IN my room, while she hogged the living room watching inane TV. If I'd had the smaller room, even IF she had been the one w/ all the money, I'd have been p.o.'d because she monopolized the living room space so much. (did you notice the change? here I am covering her expenses w/ chunks of money, which must mean I care about her; and then I'm using words like "hog" and "inane"--notice the difference?)

SO...if one of you is going to use the living room in a way that drives the other out (having lots of friend over a lot, or having the boyfriend over a lot), that person should have the smaller room, so the person pushed out has a larger, more pleasant room to retreat to.

Be alert to whether this changes--maybe she's dating now, but in a year, her boyfriend is busy, and YOU have lots of friends coming over, then be prepaed to switch.

You're the one wondering about this, etc., so you be the one to be alert to it, and to BRING IT UP NOW so you can both discuss it. Seriously, esp. if there's a big difference in room size, private bath, whatever, you need to come up w/ a situation in which the person in the small room isn't resenting things, and the person in the big room isn't lording it over.

(it may not be as hard to switch rooms as you think--you can do it as a team, which will help the "partnership" idea. If you go this route, you could decide to simply leave the beds, and move the other stuff.)

Good luck!

Personal choice. Meaning you and your roommate's personal choice.

Everyone here can tell you how we think it *should* work, but we are not going to agree with each other, let alone know what works for you, and none of our opinions actually matter. The only ones who do are yours and your roommate's. So talk about it.

If one (and only one) of you wants to pay more rent for bigger room, and you agree on the value of having the larger room, do that. If both of you want the bigger room and are willing to pay for it, or if neither of you are willing to pay more for it, you are going to have to come up with some mutually acceptable way to decide. Before you flip a coin (or whatever), you make sure you are both ok with that method, and if you want to make it a permanent choice, or a switch in six months choice. The key is you decide ahead of time on a method you both are ok with, regardless of who wins the big room.

theoracle is a bit too cynical in my opinion. And I have a lot of roommate experience, and I've had both the bigger and the smaller room, and paid equal rent in both circumstances and never had a problem with one person feeling cheated. But there are other people who would, so best to talk about it and be honest about your expectations up front. Plus, I would think if you try to put a price on the larger room, it's just as likely you won't agree to what it's worth and someone will still wind up feeling cheated. But that's just my opinion. Which, as I said, doesn't matter.

Admittedly, it's a bit late for this, but ideally you would have discussed this when deciding to be roommates. It's kind of a given that a two bedroom apartment will have unequal offerings, so ideally you would have agreed on a method of making this decision ahead of time. I mention this mainly because there are plenty of other decisions/compromises you are likely to make as roommates (cleanliness, guests, appropriate times of day for noise-making, etc) that you should discuss *before* signing a year's lease together. If you haven't already talked about how you're going to deal with disagreements, might want to do that sooner rather than after you're stuck living together.

One other thought on this "bigger bedroom" idea.

I once shared an apartment w/ a slightly bigger master bedroom. I paid the realtor fee and the deposit; my name was on the lease. I got the big bedroom.

I found that I also spent more TIME in my bedroom. it was big enough that I could without feeling claustrophobic.

HOWEVER, the *main* reason I did was bcs my roommate watched a lot of inane TV. I don't like TV much at its BEST moments, and when it's Alan Thicke and his sit-com, it couldn't stand it. It was a GOOD THING I had the bigger bedroom, bcs I would have really resented being "pushed out" of the main rooms by my roommate's use of the space.

And in fact, even though I almost never used the living room, when I *did* (for example, I had company from out of town sleeping on the couch), my roommate really resented it.

I think that was partly because she had the smaller room, and therefore she didn't have a TV in there, and it wouldn't have been as pleasant a place to spend the evening as MY room.

The other part of it, I think, was that she subconsciously thought of the living area as "hers" bcs I seldom was in it.

If I had monopolize the living room very often, it would have been even harder on her. (though maybe she'd have held onto the idea that I had a right to use it)

So, you need to count on the idea that the person w/ the smaller room is going to "live" in the living room. And the person w/ the larger room may not be there as often.

I figured, since my room was larger, more pleasant, and my reading could be done there, I wouldn't ask her to give up her activities very often. It worked, and it backfired a bit.

So you ALSO need to talk well and openly about what each of you thinks the ain rooms will be used for, and under what circumstances each of you will completely cede the use of the main rooms to each other.

what happened?

My roommate and I decided to flip a coin and I ended up getting the master bedroom. There were no hard feelings about it whatsoever; we are both matter-of-fact people. She is one of my good friends who I have know since we were 10 years old, so we know that the other is considerate and we won't get our toes stepped on. Instead of "this is mine and this is hers" thinking, we have the attitude of "this is ours".

Thank you for all your suggestions and advice everyone! ;-)