The University of New Haven is home to 4,607 undergraduate students and 1,778 graduate students. More than 70 percent of undergraduate students live on campus or in University-sponsored housing, so the other 30 percent of undergraduates, in addition to graduates, are forced to live elsewhere.

Aside from the students who commute from home, the out-of-state and international students have to factor in rent to their list of college expenses. For these first-time home-renters, it may be hard to determine what is a good deal when paying rent.

Zoe Chaves a recent Brown University graduate, class of 2013, is working on a web tool called Splitwise that will help students living off-campus.

“Splitwise is a website and mobile app that helps roommates and friends keep track of shared expenses and IOUs. It was developed in 2011 by our co-founders Jon Bittner, Ryan Laughlin, Marshall Weir. There are now two employees too, myself, Zoe Chaves, and Caleb Oller. I came on board six months ago,” said Chaves.

When using Splitwise, students are prompted to plug in a zip code. The website or app will then tell the user the average rent per bedroom in that area, by apartment size (studio, one-bed, etc.). It then calculates how much money student renters could expect to save by taking on a roommate or two versus living alone, and shows how many of each type of apartment is available in the respective zip code.

“I think the tool will be useful to University of New Haven students who are moving off-campus and trying to figure out how many roommates to get to stick to a budget, or negotiate a lower rent price with landlords. It will also be useful to seniors and recent grads who are relocating to new cities and trying to get set up (I have data for every U.S. zip code not just ones near universities),” said Chaves.

Splitwise is not a stand-alone app, meaning that the average rent tool works through the app, and Splitwise was made because, “we got a really great data set from our friends over at RentMetrics,” explained Chaves.

RentMetrics has over two-million apartment prices from across the country matched to number of bedrooms corresponding with zip codes, which users are again prompted to enter when starting their search for housing on their website. “We just wanted to do something cool with the data that would help people! And we’re all about roommates and sharing housing. So we decided to build this tool that helps people find affordable neighborhoods and figure out how many roommates to get to live cheaply,” said Chaves.

Splitwise emplyoees started making specific analyses for different colleges because the general tool is useful. This website and app visualizes data helping people connect with what they are searching for.

When it comes to searching for off-campus housing for the first time, junior Brianna Rodriquez said she would use this web tool because it has the appeal of being easier and less time consuming.

“It is nerve racking to think about going out on your own to find your own place and not knowing which is the best deal. Since we are able to provide our zip code for the search it will give us more options for closer houses that maybe we couldn’t find on our own, which will also save on gas. We will be able to compare prices and get the best house for what we are spending.”

Junior Melissa Scott who has already started looking for off-campus housing believes that this app could be a good starting point. “Since this tool provides comparisons of differently priced areas, I could take what they give me and use that when searching in more detail on a website more commonly used, which could provide more personal help. I have also never experienced an app like Splitwise that will keep track of the ‘shared expenses and IOUs’.”

“We thought about who might need this type of info the most– young people living on a budget– and we started reaching out to colleges to do these custom visuals like the one we’ve done for Stetson. We haven’t figured out yet whether we’ll be able to get fresh data sets moving forward; that’s something we’ll have to address, since the tool will only stay useful if it’s based on the most recent data,” said Chaves.

Chaves put together data for UNH students using zip codes surrounding the campus area. The information can be found at http://colleges.splitwise.com/university-of-new-haven. If students wish to search additional zip codes they can visit http://splitwise.com/.