Are you renting a house or buying? If renting, it's not going to be much difference on utilities, not signficant anyway. But if renting a house you will likely be required to do yard work. Sometimes there are also difficulties of getting repairs done when renting a house as compared to an apartment complex run by a company. It really depends on the lease you have and the terms the house owner has.
If you mean buying a house... I would not recommend it without sitting down and figuring out the legal aspects of what happens if one of you wants to bail out, gets fired, etc. But I assume you mean rent.
The benefit of an apartment is you will probably be able to find one that offers other things such as a pool, workout room, etc. You also may have a hard time finding someone who will rent to a bunch of teens.
I would recommend an apartment in your situation. It will be cheaper, you won't have to worry about maintenance of things like mowing lawns and there's usually fewer utilities to pay, plus whenever you share a wall/floor/ceiling with another heated unit instead of the cold outdoor air it cuts down on your heating costs.
Make sure you have a clear, written agreement regarding who will pay how much, including utilities and other costs. Does the person with the largest bedroom pay a bigger share of rent? Are you going to get cable/internet/phone etc - if so, who's paying the bill? Just make sure you put it in writing because everyone will remember a verbal conversation differently 6 months from now when the cable bill goes up and there's a dispute about who owes the difference.
Apartments will generally be cheaper than a stand-alone house, particularly once you factor in lawn maintenance (especially if you plan to hire someone to do it). If this is your first time moving out on your own, you might want to go the cheapest route possible until you get used to paying household bills, plus at your age you might enjoy the social aspect of apartment community living. You can always find a bigger place in a year when your lease runs out.
Try to make your max rent $500/ea. $1000/mo rent should be plenty to get a good place between you, and hopefully wouldn't kill one of you to carry for a month by yourself if you need to in case one of you moves out.
Ok, me and my friends are all 18 we work at the same job making roughly $2,200 a month each, just wondering which sounds like a smarter plan an apartment or a house? Personally I like the apartment, but it's not only up to me. Which sounds like a smarter bet with utilities and all?
