Are roommates sharing rentals always a sign of a failed housing market?
 

Hey guys,

Lately I've been thinking about the issue of roommates in housing. By roommates I'm talking about when you choose to live with someone who is not related to you (by marriage or otherwise) and that you are not having sex with. Generally speaking, this tends to fall into two broad groups. First, younger people often choose to become roommates with friends of theirs (sometimes with bad results when they discover they aren't compatible). But sometimes people end up having to share places with total strangers, due to some combination of lack of social connections and economic necessity.

Regardless, roommates tend to happen most frequently in two circumstances, at least in the U.S. One of them is if you live in a very high-cost urban area, like NYC or San Francisco, where affording your own place is difficult. The other is if you are a college student or an immediate post-grad, particularly in a "college town."

Thinking about it though, while of course there are some people who would prefer to have roommates, I think in many cases this happens due to lack of sufficient studios/one bedrooms at the appropriate price point. Most people would prefer the privacy of having their own space, even when they are young and socially active. But they cannot afford it, so they split a 2 bedroom in NYC, or they rent a whole house in the Bay Area with five other people, or whatever.

This has the knock-off effect of making these slightly-larger units unaffordable for the people who must have them. Like, people with children who live in NYC and need 2-3 bedroom units. Or families who live in college towns. Children don't pay rent, but need bedrooms, which means that someone with kids is at an income disadvantage compared to a group of gainfully-employed adults who can each pay rent towards a bedroom. Which is part of how "student slums" come into being.

Thus, I'm left wondering if roommates are a sign of an unhealthy local housing market. Basically, anywhere that you find them, does it mean there is a huge untapped market for 1 bedrooms and studios which is not being addressed? Does student rental houses (either chopped up or not) mean by definition that an area needs to have more purpose-built apartments?

Anyway, just wanted some other perspectives here.

No. I've lived with over 40 roommates. Some were people I knew from school or work but at least 20 were total strangers. I also worked an offshore job where I bunked with another 10-20 guys.

I've saved a huge amount of money by living with roommates from ages 18 to 33. After I became a homeowner, I rented spare bedrooms and continue to do so. I've made upwards of $50,000 renting spare bedrooms.

I've gotten in a grand total of 2 arguments with roommates, both about pets.

i always had roommates during and immediately after college.

at one piont, i had a place with a friend of a friend who ended up being unreliable on the rent payment front, so i got a one bed apt for myself so that i could control my own housing destiny.

after a couple of years of that, another friend of a friend told me about an open bedroom in a 3 bd apt a couple blocks from where i was living. my rent was going to go from $750/month (this was many years ago) for the one bed apt i was living in, to $500/month for taking the open bedroom in the 3 bed apt with two other roommates.

$250/month was A LOT of money to me at the time, so i did it. but after 2 years of it, i kind of got sick of sharing my living space with others, so i bought a studio condo. so throughout the whole decade of my 20s i had opportunities to experience both situations.


long story short, i don't think it's necessarily indicative of an unhealthy market, a lot of it just comes down to personal preference/choice.

I loved living with roommates after college. They basically formed by social support network. It wasn't really an affordability issue; rather more of a 20-something sociability issue.

But yeah, in NYC, it isn't odd at all to have apartment shares, at any age. I suspect it's somewhat unusual in most of the U.S.

Also, the issue of boarders seems unusual in modern-day U.S. It's quite common in NYC (see all those secret basement apartments and grannies illegally renting out rooms) and seeems normal in much of the world, even developed areas like Western Europe, but it would be very odd if some couple in suburban Ohio had a random dude living in their basement or guest room. Probably violates zoning laws and neighbors would be pissed.

Not really. There’s a logic to single people sharing common spaces, or even just living with others for companionship. At no point in the history of humankind have many people probably ever lived alone.

I don't think roommates should be conflated with "failed". Roommates can be correlated with a transitory stage in life, and you could argue that the prevalence of roommates is a sign of a healthy economy.

A near-perfect city would have apartments affordable on a single service wage. But the units in the middle of town will tend to cost more, which is almost an inherent fact in a healthy city. In this scenario, the choice would often be living by yourself on the fringes or with a roommate in the middle. A single person would often choose the latter, and that's healthy.

yeah i lived alone or had roomates all through my twenties in and just out of college, until i got married. a spouse is a roomate too of course as far as sharing costs and thus the size of the place you can get.

its true that roomate group renting power takes up larger space that may have been used by families in the past. i can maybe see that happening around nyc to some extent. it happens in college towns too, like with big old beatdown craftsman houses, although there certain neighborhoods get ghetto-ized for students and are not really attractive for others. college towns are also very popular these days for retirees, but they tend to live elsewhere from from students and just use the amenities, like say a college related training hospital and the usually intact downtown's and high streets stuff, if not the drink and drown bars lol. maybe that all means some fail for housing for families i dk.

Another thing to consider is that this is the only time in the entire history of America where it is even remotely common for individuals to live alone in a private dwelling. Shared housing has been the norm forever.

When I moved to São Paulo, I rent a tiny apartment to live alone. Then I decided to open my mind and share a rent with a cowork/friend and we found a very nice, well-located apartment. The arrangement lasted one year and it's definitely better to live alone in a worse place. In São Paulo, in the central neighbourhoods full of newcomer youngsters, that's the most common arrangement.

And of course it's only a period of your life, when you're starting. Now I bought my own place, but in the very beginning of the career it's impossible to do that. I also like this energy of big cities, with many people in their 20's, early 30's sharing spaces. I guess it contributes to a more outgoing atmosphere, people are usually more opened, more likely to go out. It definitely makes urban life better.

See above. It’s probably the first time in the history of the world.

Two bedroom apartments tend to be more prevalent also.

Roommates are a sign of a health housing market - one that caters to the needs of the people. There is a real need for roommates among some renters, along with a real desire for roommates amount others ( probably a subset of those that need ).

Interesting responses so far. I'm currently in my 20s living with roommates. My roommates so far have been people I already knew from college who also came over to CA for school.

From my point of view, if you know your roommate(s) fairly well, are doing roughly the same thing and/or have a lot in common, and also don't mind sharing certain things, it can work very well.

Without any of those conditions being met, it's better to just live alone. There's just certain people that I wouldn't want to live with, especially in a place that I would call home for a period of time.

I advise against a military career for you.

I think comparing society today to the past is wrong because in the past people were born, lived, and died in the same village. Your roommate would feel like an extended family member. And cities were places of squalor. I'd much rather live alone than with an unrelated adult roommate strictly out of economic necessity, if that's not an option then yes the housing market is unhealthy.

^ except for my freshman year college dorm roommate, i've never shared a living space with a total stranger. my various roommates during my 20s were people that I either knew, or at least knew of, within various concentric rings of my social circle, and it usually worked out fine.

there was only one time that it didn't work out, when a friend-of-a-friend roommate i was splitting a 2-bed with started shacking up at his girlfriend's place basically every night and i guess he felt like he didn't really want to pay his share of the rent/bills anymore, even though he was named on the lease and made zero attempts to sub-lease. this was in my early '20s when we were all kind of stupid and irresponsible in one way or another.

he eventually sorta "made it right", at least to a level where i felt ok moving on, but we were never close after that.

and at least the property management company was cool about it, i made it clear to them that i was still paying my share of the rent, so they only dinged his credit score, not mine.

Way ahead of that and thank God I never considered it. :cheers:

I've had around 40 room-mates so far? I like the social aspect plus it's good for saving money. The can be minor conflicts but only 2 of them got to the point where it wasn't worth the trouble. In both of those cases they were going through mental crises and not willing to acknowledge it and get support. I will say that having to share a kitchen with more than 3 others, or a bathroom with more than 2 others is not ideal, I've done it, but it's better when there are fewer room-mates/multiple bathrooms.

Also I don't think it's realistic to have students living in bachelor suites. Students are always being really cheap so for many of them, no amount of increased supply will make studios cheap enough. Now if young professionals can't afford studios, you should probably look into doing something about that because that means anyone that isn't really rich or living in non-market rate housing is struggling to find something adequate. If young professionals can't afford studio apartments, working class families probably aren't remotely close to being able to afford 2-3 bedroom units.

In my mind the only broken thing are areas that were clearly meant to be auto-oriented suburban single family homes that now have 4-5 roommates, each with a car (so an area that appears relatively low density has zero street parking available and you have to circle endlessly for spots - it's bizarre). You do see this in parts of the Bay Area and LA. Not sure I've heard of it being a thing anywhere else in the US.

Roommates in cities are totally normal though, even situations like 3-4 roommates for 3-4 bedroom urban houses or apartments.