<prompt> Human: Hi rpersonalfinance,Looking for general advice about housing for multiple college students. We are looking for townhomes and apartments in the area of 2,000, so each of us pay 500 a month. My big question is about the safest way to go about signing a lease. One person in the group is not very financially stable, but says she will be able to pay the 500 a month. I trust her, but just in case something comes up, I want to know the options we would have. Also, what would be the safest way to actually pay the rent? We were throwing around the idea of everyone paying 6 months in advance to hopefully decrease the chances of someone dropping out on short notice. Is there a chance a landlord would allow us to go into the lease as 4 separate people, opposed to a group that pays the whole rent every month?Thanks for any and all help!EDIT: Thanks for all the great responses so far. Just wanted to clarify that we have all known each other for a little over a year now met last year in college, so we are fairly comfortable that we will be fine on a social level, it was just the finances I was concerned about. Also, our parents had been funding our room and board and tuition for the first year of our college, I would expect that to stay the same for next year. The financially unstable person is mainly financially unstable because of her parents situation. Would this present any other problems?And I should have specified in the original post, we are looking at 3 bedroom places. My girlfriend and I are sharing a master bedroom. Thanks again for the responses!  <response>: Well, theres no question that each person residing wherever you end up will have to be on the lease. Some places in college towns will actually do separate leases for each person, so a 4br apartment with four leases. Your person who isnt financially stable might have trouble getting a lease in that kind of situation, though. The problem with one lease is that if any one of you breaks the lease, the remaining people are still on the hook for the entire rentutilitiesetc. Id recommend finding one of the places that will do separate leases per-bedroom, there are usually at least a couple in every college town. 