Sublet your room while on exchange and find your own!

Subletting your room while you’re on exchange is one of the best things you can do as an exchange student. You might not even know you’re allowed to, but in many cases it’s more than worth figuring out. The costs you save by subletting your room while on exchange are immense. In addition, you help out a fellow exchange student coming to your home city. What’s more; advertising your empty room before you go on exchange can increase your chances of securing a room abroad yourself!

Can you sublet your current room?

Let’s start with the basics. Can you sublet your current room? You could ask your landlord or consult your current contract. But don’t base yourself on those two elements alone. Local housing regulations are more important than your specific contract.

A concrete example: a student in Leuven, Belgium, is going on exchange and wants to sublet their room while abroad. Their landlord says it’s not possible because the contract explicitly states that subletting is not permitted. We’re not blaming the landlord here, they might just be unaware of local housing regulations. But in Flanders -the region where Leuven is located- students have the right to sublet their room when they go abroad for an exchange. These local regulations state that any section of a contract implying otherwise, is null and void. The result? Despite first appearances, our student in question is able to sublet their room. They have to notify their landlord, but don’t have to ask for permission.

Even if your housing provider is a big housing corporation, it might be worth investigating your options. After all, the costs you save by subletting are immense and could save you loads during your exchange. Check local regulations, ask your home university if they have housing support for students or contact your municipality or local government.

Sublet the room yourself!

Subletting a room works like this: the existing contract with your landlord remains in place. You keep paying them rent. Beside the existing contract, you’ll sign a contract to sublet your room. According to that additional contract, the student you’re subletting your room to will get to stay in the room for the agreed period of time, and will pay you the rent. In sum, you won’t pay anything because you simply wire the rent from the student to your landlord, but you’re still responsible for the existing main contract between you and your landlord.

This is important, because it means that you should be the one choosing the student who gets to sublet your room. Not your landlord. After all, the subletting contract is between that student and you.

Another reason why this is important, is because of the next steps. Being the one who has to find a student to sublet your room may seem like a task, but is actually an advantage.

Don’t post your sublet on Facebook

Okay, well what do you do to find a student to sublet your room? Please, do not turn to Facebook or similar socials. There’s two distinct disadvantages of Facebook, originating from the same problem: Facebook is untrustworthy.

That means that, A, other students looking for rooms on Facebook may be hesitant to sublet your room because they’re suspicious -rightfully so. And, B, you should be suspicious of them, too. Are the people reaching out to you on Facebook really students? You often can’t sublet your room to people other than students. But with the current housing market, non-students desperate to find housing sometimes pretend to be.

Post sublet on Exchange Rooms

Instead, post your sublet on Exchange Rooms or another platform targeting exchange students specifically. There’s two advantages of doing so.

The first one is this: it’s simply the good thing to do. As an exchange student yourself, it makes sense that you give your short-term accommodation to a fellow exchange student. Just like you, they’re struggling to find accommodation amidst scams, rooms that are only long-term and a tight housing market.

The second reason why you should sublet your room on Exchange Rooms is because it’s also the very same platform that might help you find housing yourself if you’re looking for a room to stay during your study abroad period. In fact, posting your room on Exchange Rooms can give you the leverage you need.

Share with home and host universities, spread the word

The way this works has a lot to do with how networks work. Without going in too much detail, your university is essentially part of a large network of universities exchanging students -with each institution receiving about as many students as they send away.

Share Exchange Rooms with you home and host university and let them know your room is available for sublet. What this does it twofold: your home university will hopefully let incoming students know they can sublet you room. Additionally, your host university will also let their own students know your room is available.

What follows is beneficial in three ways:

• The Exchange Room network gets intensified around both your home and host university, meaning the chance increases that available listings at your host city will start appearing on the platform.
• Student from your host city going to your home university will be alerted about Exchange Rooms twice, once by they home university and once by your home university -since you send both of those a link to the platform.
• You don’t necessarily need to sublet a room from a student who is going on the opposite exchange as you (that is, they come from your host city and go to your home city). All you need is to sublet a room from any exchange student at your host city. That’s why it’s important that your host university knows about Exchange Rooms and lets all their outgoing exchange students know about it.

Additional tactics are:

• Let other universities at your host city know. If your host city is home to multiple universities or institutions for higher education, let them know about Exchange Rooms, too. As said before; you don’t need to sublet a room from a student at your host institution, just a student who lives in your host city.
• If you know fellow students at your home university who are also going on exchange, they might also be interested in Exchange Rooms. If they post their own room on the platform, too, traction from students going to your home city will only increase.

All these scenarios intensify the network between your home and host university, which is exactly what you need. It does require some reaching out -an email or two, three, that is- but that’s entirely manageable and free. With the state of housing markets worldwide -let alone specifically for exchange students- you’ll be surprised about what one available room can do.

Final considerations

Subletting your room as an exchange student is the way to go. Find out if you’re allowed to by going beyond your landlord’s story or your contract. List your available room yourself on Exchange Rooms and leverage the power of the exchange network -which essentially is the network of thousands of universities worldwide- to not only find a student to sublet your room to, but also to increase your chances of finding a place abroad.