Over the past few years, 72-year-old cinematographer David West saw his whole world fell apart.
“My 22-year marriage ended, after raising four kids,” he tells Realtor.com®. “The strikes in Hollywood knocked out union and nonunion jobs, and many of them didn’t come back. I lost my brother and my dog. My whole world just collapsed for some reason.”
When he moved out of the home he shared with his wife in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles, the asking rents he encountered were astronomical.
“Renting an apartment in Los Angeles was ridiculous,” he says. “It was $3,000 a month for a one-bedroom, and I was paying for parking on top of that. With the jobs going away, it just wasn’t sustainable.”
He decided he needed to get out of Los Angeles to regroup.
“I had some friends in Fresno who told me to come on up,” he says. “I ended up renting a room from someone here to cut expenses.”
His roommate—who owns the home they now share—is around his age, and the duo have lived together for two years.
“It’s nice having someone who watches out for you and has your back when you need it,” says West.
Although West loves the cost savings of living with a roommate, he says downsizing his possessions into a single bedroom has been a big adjustment.
“I rented a storage unit for my things and built some shelves in my room for extra storage as well,” he says.
Still, West says the overall benefits of having a roommate, both personal and financial, outweigh the challenges.
“I don’t think it’s healthy to be isolated as you get older,” he says. “It’s good to have a community.”
As inflation rises, “more and more people will get roommates as they age,” West says. “Things are so expensive. With solo housing, food, and everything else, Social Security doesn’t always cover it.”
Older roommates are on the rise
The fastest-growing roommate demographic is now the baby boomer age bracket of 65 and older, whose share of the overall rental market has more than tripled over the past decade, according to the roommate-finding platform SpareRoom.
The second-highest increase has been seen among roommates aged 55-64, comprising older members of Gen X.
“People in their 50s or 60s might have gone through a major life change—might have changed careers, might have gone through a divorce—and 10 years ago, would have gone and rented a one-bedroom or a studio,” Matt Hutchinson, communications director for SpareRoom, tells Realtor.com. “And they’re looking at prices and going, ‘Well, there’s no way I can afford to do that.’ And so they’re finding themselves living with roommates.”
It’s a national trend, he says. “The numbers will vary a little bit depending on the place, so the super expensive cities will probably be slightly higher, but it’s really happening everywhere.”
Renting is no longer just a stepping stone to homeownership, according to Hutchinson. For many, especially those nearing retirement without sufficient savings, it’s becoming a long-term financial necessity.
“Roommates aged over 45 represented just over a tenth of the market a decade ago, but now make up almost a quarter of it,” he says.
Multigenerational roommate situations are also increasing
While the idea of older roommates may bring to mind shows such as “The Golden Girls,” Hutchinson says many people are actually living with roommates from different generations.
SpareRoom found that 39% of roommates now live in multigenerational households, where the age difference between the oldest and youngest adult is 20 years or more. More than a quarter (27%) have roommates with a 30-year-plus age gap between them.
“It’s not just that there are a bunch of people in their 60s living with each other and there are a bunch of 20-year-olds living with each other—people are mixing it up as well,” says Hutchinson. “I think that’s really interesting, because multigenerational friendships are very important—and sometimes we can stay in our lane or our bubble.”
Hutchinson says older adults are often hesitant at the prospect of having roommates at first, but rethink their views after trying the arrangement themselves.
“The interesting thing we hear all the time with this, particularly with people who’ve come out of a divorce or a difficult situation, they’re kind of slightly skeptical about moving back in with roommates,” he says. “And yet often we hear from people further down the road going, ‘Actually, it was the best thing for me at that point for me in my life. Spending all my money on rent in a one-bed apartment somewhere not being able to afford to go out, just after going through something like that, I wouldn’t have been around people.’
“The story we’ve heard so many variations of is: ‘I get back from work, and I’d see that the lights were on, and I’d think, ‘Ugh, I’ve got to talk to people.’ And then after two or three months, they’d see the lights and think, ‘Great, people to talk to!'”
Hutchinson says these roommates create little communities.
“Three, four people living in an apartment is like a little family for as long as they’re together,” he says.
Roommates reduce living expenses
Hutchinson says he expects the trend of older adults living with roommates to grow, since housing affordability is unlikely to improve significantly in the near future.
He also points out that many older homeowners are now renting out spare rooms to help manage rising mortgage payments and increasing living expenses. With the cost of nearly everything climbing—not just rent—taking in a roommate has become a practical financial solution for many homeowners.
According to Hutchinson, these shifts reflect changing attitudes about housing and life stages. Traditional expectations about where people “should” be financially or socially at certain ages are being challenged and redefined.
He adds that while some individuals may feel embarrassed about struggling to afford housing, the larger issue lies with failing systems and policies. In his view, housing challenges are less about personal failure and more about broader economic and government systems that are no longer meeting people’s needs.
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