How UCLA Students Split a Triple in Westwood

Westwood is one of the most expensive places in Los Angeles to rent, and UCLA students have spent decades solving that with one blunt tactic: put three people in a bedroom. It is the same arrangement the university itself uses in the residence halls, so most Bruins arrive already knowing what a triple feels like, and plenty of them carry the habit off campus.

When students split a triple in Westwood they are not chasing a cheaper neighborhood, they are chasing a cheaper share of an expensive one, and the arithmetic can be dramatic. It can also be a trap, because a rent figure divided by three is only real if the lease actually permits three people in that room. Below we take the rents on the current Westwood listings exactly as they are posted, divide them the several ways students really do, and show you where the numbers stop being trustworthy. Every figure in this post comes from a specific listing you can open yourself on the off-campus housing page for UCLA.

Begin your search at Off-Campus Universe, where you can browse current listings near Los Angeles (Westwood), compare bedroom counts against bathroom counts, and pull up each landlord's asking rent before you decide how many people you need on the lease to make a place work.

Four Westwood listings are open right now, all recorded as under five minutes from UCLA.

ARC WESTWOOD is $1,800/month for a 1bd/1ba. Alone that is $1,800; shared two to the bedroom it is $900 each; shared three ways it is $600 each, and a one-bedroom is exactly the case where you should expect the lease to say no. 601 westholme avenue is $3,999/month for a 2bd/2ba apartment, recorded as 13% off an asking price of $4,600. Two people pay $1,999.50 each. Four people, doubled up in both rooms, pay $999.75 each. Six people, which is a triple in each bedroom, pay $666.50 each. 10997 Roebling Ave(3 bedroom/2 bath) is $5,500/month for a 3bd/2ba. One person per room is $1,833.33 each, two per room is $916.67 each, and three per room across all three bedrooms is about $611.11 each for nine people sharing two bathrooms. That last number is the whole appeal of tripling in one line, and the two bathrooms are the whole objection. Finally, 527 1/2-3 Bedroom 1.5 Bath (2 Showers) is listed at $5,250/month for a 3bd/1.5ba apartment and is recorded as a private room, which cannot be squared with the price. As a whole-unit rent it splits to $1,750 each for three, $875 each for six and about $583.33 each for nine, and the 1.5 bathrooms with two showers is the constraint you would be buying. As a private-room rent, $5,250 would be more than the entire two-bedroom on Westholme Avenue, which is hard to believe but is not ours to assume away. Do not guess which reading is right. Email the landlord, ask whether $5,250 is the rent for the apartment or for one bedroom, keep the reply, and only then put it next to the other listings.

Westwood Block by Block

The student-dense core of Westwood is the set of blocks immediately east and south of campus that everyone calls the North Village: Gayley Avenue, Landfair Avenue, Strathmore Drive, Roebling Avenue, Kelton Avenue, Glenrock Avenue, Levering Avenue, Ophir Drive, Veteran Avenue and Midvale Avenue. These are mid-century apartment buildings packed tight, mostly a five to fifteen minute walk to class, and they are where high-occupancy leases are most common and most expected. One of the listings above sits on Roebling Avenue, right in that zone. Westwood Village itself, around Broxton, Weyburn, Kinross and Lindbrook, mixes shops and restaurants with apartments above them, and you pay for the location and hear the street. Westholme Avenue and the blocks running south toward Wilshire Boulevard are quieter and more residential, which is where the other listing sits.

Cross Wilshire and you are into the high-rise corridor and Century City, generally a different price bracket. Keep going and the realistic student options are Palms, Sawtelle and West Los Angeles, Mar Vista and Culver City, where you trade the walk for a commute. If you land out there, check the current routes into campus before you sign, including the Big Blue Bus lines from the Santa Monica side, Culver CityBus from the south, Metro service along Wilshire and Westwood Boulevard, and the university's own BruinBus shuttles, and confirm how late each one runs. A route that gets you to a 9 a.m. lecture but not home from a 10 p.m. lab section is only half a solution.

Split a Triple in Westwood: The Arithmetic and the Trade-Offs

The decision to split a triple in Westwood comes down to whether the money you save is worth what you give up, so be specific about both halves. The money is easy to see: in the three-bedroom on Roebling Avenue, going from one person per room to three drops the per-person share from $1,833.33 to about $611.11, which is roughly a third of the cost for the same address. What you give up is harder to price. Three beds, three desks and three sets of belongings in one bedroom usually means bunk beds or lofts, one closet divided three ways, and studying somewhere other than your room, which in practice means the libraries, a lab or a coffee shop, every day, on their hours rather than yours. Sleep is the real cost.

Three people with different class schedules, different jobs and different social lives generate light and noise at all hours, and an eye mask and earplugs become equipment, not accessories. Bathrooms matter more than people expect: nine residents against the two bathrooms on Roebling Avenue is a different morning than nine against the 1.5 bathrooms and two showers recorded on the 527 listing. And the whole plan rests on one legal question. Ask the landlord, in writing, how many occupants the lease permits, whether every occupant must be named on it and pass screening, whether rent changes with the headcount, and what the guest policy says about someone who is effectively living there.

Los Angeles leases routinely cap occupancy, and a landlord who discovers three people in a room rented for one can treat it as a lease violation. Get the permitted number first, then do the division. Doing it in the other order is how a group of nine ends up looking for housing in September.

Four Things to Nail Down Before You Triple Up

• Get the permitted occupancy in writing before you count on any per-person number. Ask how many people the lease allows, who must be named on it, whether the rent or deposit changes with headcount, and what happens if someone moves in unofficially.

• Measure the actual bedroom, not the listing photo. Bring a tape measure to the tour, check the wall the beds would go against, the ceiling height for a loft or bunk, the number and size of closets, and where three desks or a shared work surface would physically fit.

• Agree the house rules before you sign, not after you move in. Quiet hours, guests staying over, who studies where, how the closet and fridge divide, and what happens when two roommates have an 8 a.m. and the third works nights.

• Understand the money mechanics. Most leases make everyone jointly and severally liable, meaning the remaining roommates owe the full rent if one leaves, so confirm whether replacements are allowed, who approves them, how the deposit is divided at move-out, and which utilities are bundled versus billed.

Ready to find your place? Browse all listings at Off-Campus Universe.

This article is provided by an independent housing resource and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the University of California, Los Angeles.