SpareRoom Founder Rupert Hunt Is Looking For Roommates — and the Rent Is “Pay What You Can Afford”

SpareRoom Founder Rupert Hunt Is Looking For Roommates — and the Rent Is “Pay What You Can Afford”

Rupert Hunt founded SpareRoom, a UK flatmate-matching service, in 2004. Now, he’s using SpareRoom to find a few housemates of his own — but he’s not your typical roommate.

“It’d be great if someone could play the piano,” Hunt says, as he gives YouTube viewers and potential housemates a tour of his $4.4 million dollar home, originally built in 1710.

Hunt’s five-story Georgian home was used in the film The Woman in Black and is on the route of multiple Jack the Ripper tours. Keira Knightley is one of his neighbors.

Hunt has two rooms available for rent: one only small enough for one person, and the other one large enough for either an individual or a couple.

He’s asking his new housemates to pay only what they can afford.

“Living with the right people beats living on your own,” Hunt explains. He doesn’t care how much money his new housemates make, as long as they’re good people and good living companions.

As Hunt explains in his SpareRoom listing—because yes, he did list his own home on SpareRoom:

I’m offering the rooms on a ‘pay what you can afford’ basis. I’m far more interested in finding the right people to share with, who I’ll enjoy having around and add something to my life, than maximising my rent (and market rent round here would price some people out). So if you’re my perfect flatmate and happen to be volunteering and can only afford £100 per month, I’d sooner take you over someone who can pay full whack but who isn’t quite right.

I’m not after flatmates who just want cheaper rent though. You’ll need to genuinely want to share with me — for your benefit as much as mine: The people you live with can be the difference between you dreading going home each day or having the time of your life. Even if this is the house of your dreams, I might be your flatmate from hell 🙂

Unfortunately, Hunt’s SpareRoom listing also states that he is no longer accepting applications; apparently he’s got more than enough people interested in becoming his new best friend.

Let’s hope they watched the introductory video in his webseries—because yes, Hunt is turning the selection process into a webseries—in which Hunt suggests that potential candidates “give me a sense of your personality” as well as make the application memorable by, say, offering to bake him cookies.

That’s where it gets just a smidge uncomfortable; searching for the perfect roommate regardless of financial situation is one thing, but suggesting that potential roommates curry favor with baked goods is another.

It makes sense that a person with less resources would offer something else of value in return—Slate did a whole piece on the phenomenon of interns buying doughnuts for their not-quite-coworkers—but to ask for it outright tips the balance.

Which makes me wonder: can there ever be an equitable relationship between Hunt and his new housemates? Is he also going to be their landlord, for example? I’m sure that there can be a friendly and beneficial relationship between Hunt and whomever he chooses. I’m just not sure it will ever be equal.

Would you apply for this position, were it still open? Would you offer to bake Hunt cookies? Also: how much rent would you tell Hunt you could afford?

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