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Group rent affordability calculator

Work out what rent your whole home can carry, not just what one person can. It shows which housemate sets the limit, and what a leasing office will check. Free, instant, and no sign up.

What your home can carry

Add what each person earns to see your range.

You have your number.

Things can change though. We are always releasing new tools and articles about sharing a home. Want us to send them your way?

How to use this calculator

  1. Add a row for each person who will be on the lease.
  2. Put in what each person earns per month before tax. If someone has not shared theirs yet, leave it blank and the answer will cover the rest of you.
  3. Move the slider if your home wants a stricter or looser line than 30 percent.
  4. Add your monthly utilities, since they are part of what housing really costs.
  5. Looking at a real place? Put its rent in and you will also see what a leasing office checks.

How this is calculated

Two numbers matter, and they are not the same. The first takes your line, say 30 percent, and applies it to the person who earns least. Their share sets the ceiling, so we multiply it by how many of you there are. That is the rent where nobody in your home is over the line. The second adds every income up and takes the same percentage of the total. That is what most calculators show, and it can be much higher.

A worked example. Four people. Three earn $5,000 a month and one earns $2,400. Together that is $17,400, and 30 percent of it is $5,220 of rent. Looks fine. But split four ways, $5,220 is $1,305 each, and for the person on $2,400 that is 54 percent of their pay. The honest number is the other one: 30 percent of $2,400 is $720, times four, so $2,880. The gap between $5,220 and $2,880 is the whole point of this tool.

Utilities come out of the rent budget, because the standard this line comes from has always counted them as part of housing. So if your home can carry $2,880 of housing and utilities run $200, the rent to aim for is $2,680.

When you enter a real place, we also run the two versions of the landlord test. One adds everyone's pay and compares it to the rent. The other takes the lowest earner and compares them to their own share. Most places ask for 3 times. A group can pass the first and fail the second, which is exactly the surprise worth avoiding before you apply.

We never print a verdict. You will not see this tool say a place is affordable or unaffordable, because that word hides a judgement only your home can make. You get the figures, who sits over the line, and what each person has left over.

Sources: US Census Bureau American Community Survey 2023 for renter cost burden, the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1969 and the 1981 change to it (as set out in Wright v. Roanoke, US Supreme Court, 1987), and Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies on measuring housing affordability. Landlord screening multiples come from property management industry sources and vary by market.

The 30 percent rule is younger and thinner than you think

In 1969 Congress passed a law capping rent in public housing at 25 percent of what a tenant earned. In 1981 it moved the cap to 30 percent. No budget study drove that change. It moved 5 points in a budget bill. Everything you read about "the 30 percent rule" traces back to that.

Housing researchers have criticised it for years, for two plain reasons. It does not bend for how many people live in a home, and it does not bend for income. Someone earning a lot can spend more than 30 percent and still cover everything else. Someone earning little cannot spend 30 percent and be fine. There is a better idea, called residual income, which starts from what your other costs actually are and sees what is left. We do not use it, because we would have to guess your grocery bill to do it. Instead we show you the dollars each person has left, and let you judge.

So treat 30 percent as a starting line someone drew in 1981, not as a law of money. Your home gets to move it.

Common questions

How much rent can a group of roommates afford?
Take the lowest paid person in your home. Work out the rent where their equal share still sits under your line, then multiply by how many of you there are. That is the rent where nobody is stretched. Adding all the incomes up gives a bigger number, but that number hides whoever earns least. Rent gets shared. Pay does not.
Do landlords add our incomes together?
Some do and some do not, and it decides whether you get the place. Many leasing offices add every applicant up and test the total against the rent. Others check each person on their own share. The strict version is common in big buildings. Ask which one they use before you apply. This tool shows you both.
What is the 3x rent rule?
Most landlords want to see monthly pay before tax of at least three times the rent. The same rule shows up as "40 times the monthly rent" in yearly pay, which is common in New York. Both are just another way of saying about a third of your pay. It is what the industry does, not a law.
Where did the 30 percent rule come from?
From a law, not from a study. In 1969 Congress capped rent in public housing at 25 percent of what a tenant earned. In 1981 Congress moved that cap to 30 percent. That is the whole story behind the number the internet treats as a fact. It is a useful starting line. It is not a finding about what people can afford, so we let you move it.
Is it bad if we go over 30 percent?
It is very common. About half of US renters pay 30 percent or more of their pay for housing, and the middle renter pays about 31 percent. Housing research calls that being cost burdened. It is a real risk, but a tool that tells a normal person their normal apartment is impossible is not being careful, it is being useless.
Do we use pay before or after tax?
Before tax. The 30 percent line and every landlord rule are written against pay before tax. If you type your take home pay by mistake, the tool will look stricter than it should and you may rule out places you could get. Use the number on your offer letter or your pay slip before deductions.
Should utilities count?
Yes, and most calculators quietly leave them out. The rule this line comes from has always counted a reasonable amount for utilities as part of housing cost. So put your monthly power, gas, water, and internet in. A place with $250 of utilities is not the same deal as one where heat is included.
What if one of us earns a lot less?
Then that person is the real limit, and it is much better to know before anyone signs. You have honest options. Look at cheaper places, give the smaller room to the person who earns least and split the rent unevenly, or add a housemate. What does not work is signing and hoping. A joint lease makes one person’s hard month everyone’s.
We want uneven shares. Can this do that?
This tool splits evenly on purpose, so it answers one question well. Once you know the rent you are aiming for, use our rent split calculator to work out uneven shares by room size or by income. Doing both here would make the answer harder to trust.

Signing is step one

Picking a place you can all carry is the good start. Then the rent and the bills arrive every month for a year, and that is where it gets tiring. Homera runs that part for your whole home. Your home agrees on the shares once. Then everyone pays before the due date, and the app sends the reminders, so nobody has to ask a friend for money.

See how Homera works

What comes next

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Last updated 2026-07-26.