Rising rents are trapping young adults in house shares they would rather have left behind, with many feeling that buying a first home is slipping further out of reach.
According to the Office for National Statistics, the average private rent across the UK has reached £1,354 a month. For many in their twenties and thirties, the cost of living alone is simply unaffordable, forcing them to stay in shared accommodation long after they had planned to move on.
New research from lifetime ISA provider OneFamily found that four in five adults aged 18 to 40 have lived with housemates, yet a third said they did not enjoy the experience.
The most common complaints were a lack of privacy (37%), noise (32%) and messy housemates (29%). Some respondents told of kitchens piled high with dirty dishes, flatmates who practised DJ sets through the night, and even shared freezers containing Tupperware boxes of frozen mice.
Despite these frustrations, more than a third of those surveyed said they continued to share because it was cheaper than renting alone.
Lucy Laing, a 42-year-old creative freelancer from Brighton, described her years of renting in London as “a constant compromise”. She said: “You have a limited choice of where you’re going to live, due to high rent costs. You’re forced to move into places that are meant to feel like home, but don’t, and you can end up with housemates who have no respect for privacy or personal space.
“I was spending around £700 a month on rent split across a few people. Friends would say, ‘Why don’t you just buy somewhere?’ But how can you save for a deposit when rent costs were so high?”
Her experience echoes that of many young renters caught between expensive rents and the rising costs of homeownership.
Jim Islam, chief executive of OneFamily, said: “We’re seeing a generation stuck in shared homes they’ve long outgrown, not out of choice, but because high rents make it nearly impossible to move on. Everyone deserves independence and peace of mind, but for many young people these things now feel like luxuries.
“Owning your own place used to be a milestone of adulthood. Today, it’s increasingly out of reach for those trying to balance everyday rent with saving for a deposit.”
