36 Questions to Ask Potential Roommates

Knowing the right questions to ask potential roommates is essential for maintaining a happy and healthy living space when rooming with others. Did you know that 47.9% of people surveyed reported "frequent" or "occasional conflict” with their roommates? Crazy, we know.

The best way to find a roommate is by asking tons of questions to figure out all the pros and cons of living with someone else. Don’t worry. We've got you covered! We took the guesswork out of the process with these compatibility questions to help decide if you should make the roommate commitment or keep looking. From income to personality type, here are the questions to ask a potential roommate.

1. What Do You Do for a Living?

Your roommate questionnaires should include info about their job and what kind of hours they hold. You may not care about what type of career your roommate has, but it could impact your daily living arrangement. For example, working all night at a club or keeping early morning hours could impact their ability to sleep and relax.

2. Can You Afford the Cost of Rent?

With sky-high rents and an increasing cost of living, ask your potential new roommate if they can afford rent. They should consider if they can meet the 30% rule, which strongly encourages spending no more than 30% of your take-home pay on rent and related costs.

3. Have You Ever Had to Ask a Roommate to Pay Your Share of Rent?

Your roommate questions should include whether or not they've needed financial help to pay rent. But it's not always a dealbreaker. For example, a roommate who was laid off and was in-between jobs or had an unexpected medical or family emergency may be justified in asking a roommate who doubled as their close friend for rent money.

4. Have You Ever Been Arrested?

You can probably look the other way if a roommate had a one-time arrest for unruly conduct after a night out drinking in their 20s. But you should never ignore repeated arrests, especially over domestic violence charges or stealing. You need to feel safe in your apartment and trust the person you're living with.

5. Have You Ever Been Evicted?

Eviction status should be on your list of questions to ask a roommate. Remember that people can get evicted simply because their landlord stops paying the mortgage and defaults on their loan. Other times it's due to unforeseen circumstances, like losing a job and getting sick during the pandemic. You may be comfortable with the reasons for a new roommate's eviction, but you should always ask and consider the circumstances.

6. Do You Work from Home?

Working from home may be the new normal, but that doesn't mean the work-from-home individual is a roommate match. You may already work from a home office or worry they'll want to set up from the shared living room, making it difficult to relax or entertain friends. Ask about their schedule and how often they'll have phone calls or Zoom meetings that could disrupt your home life.

7. How Do You Usually Structure Your Workday?

Whether your roommate works from home or the office, ask about their workday and how they structure their day. You need to know if they expect to sleep in, come in late, and how much take-home work they want to do from the couch.

8. What Are You Looking for in a Roommate?

The harmony of your living arrangement also depends on what your roommate wants. Your roommate questions could uncover that they want a close friendship or someone to split bills with to get cheaper rent. You can be very different and still enjoy living together, but it requires getting on the same page so everyone knows what to expect.

9. Are You More Introverted or Extroverted?

Introverts and extroverts can live happily together, but it also depends on the personalities involved. You can be an introvert who enjoys being alone but still loves talking one-on-one with your roommate. Just ensure any extroverts in the house understand if the other needs quiet or how often guests can come over.

10. What Is Your Typical Wake-up and Bedtime Routine?

Roommates who share a bathroom or common spaces need to know each other's morning and evening routines. You may love a long shower before work, making it difficult for a roommate to get ready. Or your roommate may stay up late every night to watch a movie before dozing off on the couch, requiring an agreement over shared spaces and noise levels.

11. Do You Consider Yourself an Early Bird or Night Owl?

Earlier risers and night owls may work well together if you both enjoy having time and space to yourself. However, light sleepers typically don't want the activity around the apartment, so understanding each other's boundaries and preferences is essential.

12. Do You Smoke, Vape, or Drink?

Depending on your lease and lifestyle preferences, smoking, vaping, and drinking could be a deal breaker. On the other hand, your roommate may be okay with any of the above as long as it's just a once-in-a-while occasion, like vaping outside on the balcony during a party or on a lazy weekend afternoon.

13. Do You Own a Car or Have Reliable Transportation?

Cities with good public transportation options make needing a car a non-issue, but smaller areas without good infrastructure are more challenging. Your roommate should have a reliable way to get around. The last thing you want to discover is that they expect a ride to work, the store, and anywhere else they need to go. It's also wise to ask what kind of transportation it is because a bike probably won't cut it on a rainy day.

14. Do You Have Friends that Come Over Often?

Getting to know each other's friends is often a major perk of having a new roommate. But it can also get old if your apartment is party central or the place where everyone wants to hang out and watch the game every weekend. Ask how often their friends are around and any ground rules if you need more peace and quiet.

15. What Are Your Cleaning Habits?

Your roommate’s idea of cleaning the apartment can mean something completely different than yours. Not cleaning, or cleaning obsessively, can cause friction at home and quickly sour your living arrangement. Ask about which chores they're okay doing and which ones they loathe to see if you can figure out a compromise and get on a similar cleaning schedule.

16. How Would You Prioritize the Following: Work, Rest, Play, and Clean?

It's a good idea to determine your roommate's priorities to know what to expect. If your list is entirely different, you'll resent it when your roommate wants to play video games at 1 am while you're hoping to rest and get up early enough to clean the apartment before going to work.

17. What Is Your Ideal Indoor Temperature?

Your potential roommate questions should include what temperature they prefer and if they have any flexibility. Adjusting your thermostat by just a few degrees can lower your utility bills. Your roommate may also tell you they're okay with whatever temperature but need the heat blasting by morning to get up and around for work.

18. How Often Do You Cook?

In an ideal world, you and your roommate enjoy a mutually beneficial relationship where you trade off cooking and doing the dishes. Or you can chip in for shared groceries to make it worth their while to whip something up for both of you. But if you’re not into cooking, you may not want a roommate who has that expectation.

19. Do You Have Any Specific Food Requirements or Allergies?

You don't need to share grocery lists with a roommate, but sometimes it helps your finances to split common ingredients like flour, milk, or spices. Whether or not you plan to share food, asking about any food allergies is wise. Someone with a severe peanut allergy may be unable to live with the airborne dust or oils contaminating the countertops.

20. What Do You Like to Do on the Weekends?

Your roommate screening questions can also include what they do on weekends, whether watching TV and catching up on sleep or texting with friends. You may realize they want to throw parties or host overnight guests. Or they may want a quiet apartment and a roommate who is out all day, leaving them in solitude.

21. What TV Shows, Video Games, and/or Music Interests You?

Having shared interests and common ground with your roommate is essential for a comfortable and happy home life. Ask about their media preferences and consider how they align with yours. You may not need to share a love of movies, but if all they want to watch are horror films, you may have a problem if you share a TV.

22. Do You Have Any References?

Roommate interview questions are revealing, but you still need good references from former roommates or landlords. You want to get an idea of their reliability and whether or not their references gush over them or simply state the facts and suggest "they at least paid rent on time." You may think the roommate is nice and dependable, but something is not quite right.

23. Do You Have Any Pets?

Pets can perk up an apartment but may also be against your lease terms if it’s a restricted dog breed or require an additional pet deposit. You may also have allergies or want to avoid feeling obligated for a last-minute walk or pet sitting if your roommate suddenly needs to work late or go out of town.

24. Are You Able to Put Down a Deposit?

If a potential roommate is subletting, they may not need to put down a security deposit. But it's still a good idea to ask if they can. It will let you know how much financial reserves they have, or your landlord may decide they want them to sign a lease and pay a deposit as part of their stay.

25. Are You in a Serious Relationship?

Relationship status should be on your list of things to ask potential roommates. Someone in a serious relationship could be a great roommate because they may spend most nights with their significant others and have a predictable social life. But it could also mean their partner is practically living with you or has decided to break their roommate agreement and move out early.

26. Are There Any Challenges You Faced in Prior Living Situations?

As you would in a job interview, ask your roommate about their previous challenges. Ask about their past living arrangements, what proved the most difficult, and how they resolved it. You may understand that they couldn't deal with a noisy roommate, but feel alarmed if they describe how they got even by destroying their electronics or blasting music in retaliation.

27. What Do You Consider Your Worst Habit?

Bad habits should rank high on a list of questions to ask future roommates. We all have them, so make sure to tell your potential roommate your bad habits as well. Leaving the lights on probably isn't a big deal, but forgetting to take out the trash or pay bills will make your life more stressful.

28. How Long Do You Plan on Staying?

It's important to ask a future roommate how long they plan on sticking around. This way, you don't get stuck with surprise moving days or unexpected bills, and you can figure out who's doing what chores for how long.

29. Do You Have Any Pet Peeves?

You may think your habit of leaving dried peanut butter on clean spoons is innocent enough, but it could be the one thing that sets a potential roommate over the edge. Talk through each other’s pet peeves and consider whether or not you can accommodate them or if they seem too nitpicky.

30. How Do You Go About Solving Conflicts?

Make a note about conflict resolution on your roommate questionnaire to get a sense of their personality. You may prefer thinking through the problem for a few days before holding a household meeting to work it out. Someone else may want to talk it out right then, or not at all, and send a text about what to do next.

31. How Do You Handle Stress?

Knowing someone's stressors and how they deal with them can help shape the success of your living arrangement. When someone shuts down during stress, they usually don't want to talk it out. On the other hand, some people want to vent and complain before blowing off steam with a jog or pub night out with friends.

32. Do You Have Savings for Unexpected Expenses?

Understanding spending styles are key to figuring out how to find a good roommate. A potential roommate may have a good job but not be much of a saver and spend their last dollar to pack in as much fun as possible. Yet unexpected expenses quickly impact their ability to pay rent and utilities on time, not to mention chip in for shared repairs not covered by your lease.

33. How Do You Feel About Visitors?

Disclose your preferences regarding guests to your new roommate, such as inviting over friends or a significant other on a nightly basis. Discuss how comfortable they are with the frequency of visitors and how to handle shared spaces or food. You may not want to share the TV on a Saturday afternoon or offer up your share of the fridge.

34. Do You Anticipate Any Visitors from Out of Town?

It's not unusual for out-of-town visitors to make an appearance when you have a roommate. But how often do they come, and what's their average stay length? A few days may be fine, but someone staying for weeks could require chipping in more for utilities or rent to compensate for using shared spaces.

35. How Often Do You Travel for Work or Pleasure?

A traveling roommate could leave more space and independence in your apartment, but you may also prefer someone to be around more often. Or they may have expectations when they travel, like wanting you to pay for the bulk of the utilities that month or dealing with their pets and mail.

36. Is There Anything Else I Should Know?

Sometimes we run out of roommate questions without asking the one thing we wish we knew. Ask your potential roommate directly about anything else you should know. They may reveal a quirky habit of singing opera in the shower, or they may not like talking to anyone after work while they decompress. The more you understand the person you're living with, the more you can foster a stress-free, happy environment at home.

Make Your Move: Start Apartment Hunting

Having the right questions to ask potential roommates can help you figure out who you can live with and who you should give a pass. Remember, a good roommate doesn't always have to be a friend but should be easy to live with and pay their share of rent and utilities on time. Shared interests, mutual respect, and an understanding of how each of you prefers to live go a long way to finding the ideal roommate situation for you.

Now, if you've found the perfect roommate and still need the right apartment, you can find it with Apartment List. Just set your filters to the number of bedrooms you want to find a place for you and your new roommate.