3 months out
- Read your lease's sublet clause and email your landlord for written consent.
- Decide your price, a small discount fills a room a month faster than holding out for full rent.
- Post in your school's housing groups and tell your own group chats. The best subletters come from one degree of separation.
6 weeks out
- Video-call your top candidates; confirm they're a real student with a reason to be in town.
- Agree on the real terms out loud: rent, dates, deposit, utilities, guests, your stuff.
- Put it all in a sublease agreement and get it e-signed by both of you, while you're both still in the same country and time zone.
2 weeks out
- Set the payment schedule in writing and make sure the first payment clears before you fly.
- Sort out keys, wifi, parking passes, and anything with your name on it.
- Tell your roommates, in writing, who is moving in and when.
Handoff day
- Walk the room together and take timestamped photos of everything, walls, floors, appliances, existing damage.
- Hand over keys only after the agreement is signed and photos are saved where both of you can see them.
While you're abroad
- Check that each rent payment lands on schedule, a logged schedule makes this a ten-second glance, not a spreadsheet.
- Keep one channel of communication open, and keep anything that changes money in writing.