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5 Tips for Home Sharing for Expats

Shared housing is not for everyone, but is becoming a popular way for expatriates and international citizens these days. Homesharing is an alternative way for expats and non-expats alike to reduce their housing needs. It can provide a lot of benefits for expats.

Tips for Expats on Home Sharing

Home sharing is can be viewed as a legal or informal arrangement by which two or more unrelated people share a dwelling of some sort. In most cases, each will retain a private space. Here are 5 tips for future or current home-sharing expatriates that may make the whole process both rewarding and more beneficial to both sides.

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Pay The Bills And Rent On Time

A thing that may be common sense to you, it’s not really so for your housemates. Hence, don’t depend on one’s generosity to guarantee formalities and practicalities are being dealt with. All residents should take care of the bills and rents within due time. One way to make sure this as a household is to allocate one person who collects money some days before the due date.

Make food and cleaning arrangements

Food shopping and cleaning schedules are critical for solo expat and home-sharing arrangements. If you think about it, food sharing and cleaning your flat will be the 2 most likely things that will cause disagreements and resentment. Make sure the rules are clearly laid out for all parties. Online shopping can be a great way to reduce the effort for both of you and hiring a cleaning service can also reduce tensions.

Draw up a contract between the expat home sharers

It is usually a good idea for expat home-sharing rules to be written down and agreed upon by both parties, preferably with a signature. You may want to get some legal help on this as well. If anything, it can help resolve disputes and protect both parties at the same time. Note that your expat destination may have laws and customs that you may not like or be favorable to home-sharing global nomads.

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Choose the right home-sharing expat

Make sure you do your due diligence and check out the expat home sharer carefully before you enter into an agreement. A video interview would be critical and an in-person exchange of views and wants is preferable, but not easy with COVID and the nature of international citizens living abroad. Speaking of Covid, it is probably a good idea to make sure that your home-sharing expat partner will be vaccinated as this protects you and your flatmates.

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Make sure you ask yourself if home-sharing is really for you

Yes, that’s right, home-sharing is not always the best thing for expatriates. It may sound hip and you do save a lot of money, but ask yourself some questions before you dive into home-sharing:

• Do I like meeting and living with strangers?
• Will I be ok living with an expat who is not the same gender?
• Am I sensitive to other people and their quirks?
• Am I flexible and willing to compromise?
• Should I use a home-sharing service?
• Have I weight the pros and cons of expat home sharing?

If the benefits of home-sharing outweigh the costs and disadvantages, then give it a try for a short time period before you enter into a long agreement abroad. Home-sharing can be great for both parties and you may meet some lifelong friends in the process.