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Here's the actual sentence:

> 私の部屋は、家ちんも安いし、駅にも近くて便利です。

How do you read '家ちん' and what does it mean? It's most likely that ちん is
usually written in kanji since I got the sentence from a Japanese textbook for
beginners.
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question
readings
Pronunciation of 家 in ...家ちんも安い
It's pronounced `やちん`, and written `家賃` if using all kanji. It means
"[rent](http://jisho.org/words?jap=yachin&eng=&dict=edict)", as in "the rent
for this place is expensive".
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This is a continuation of my comment on the question, but it became too long
for a comment, so I am posting it as an answer.

As you correctly guessed, this word is usually written in kanji. Writing 家ちん
instead of 家賃 is an instance of [交]{ま}ぜ[書]{が}き: writing a word partly in kanji
letters and partly in kana letters because there is a factor which prevents
the use of certain kanji letters. 交ぜ書き occurs even in text not specifically
written for learners of Japanese. For example, the word [斡旋]{あっせん}
(recommendation of a person to a job or a job to a person, matching of
employers to employees) is often written as あっ旋 because kanji 斡 is not a [joyo
kanji](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C5%8Dy%C5%8D_kanji).

As you experienced, it is sometimes difficult to read a word written in 交ぜ書き.
Although 交ぜ書き is usually used to allow intended readers to read the text more
easily, it is debatable whether it actually accomplishes its purpose, and some
people (including me) prefer to avoid 交ぜ書き and write whole words in kanji
letters and add ruby to difficult letters instead. There are discussions about
交ぜ書き available on the web, including the one in a [report by the Japanese
Language Council in November
1995](http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/hakusho/nc/t19951101001/t19951101001.html).
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