Growing Trend in "Roommate" Rentals

Growing Trend in

Over the past few months, we've seen a significant increase in applications from unrelated adults who are seeking to move-in together as roommates.  In a recent presentation to the National Association of Residential Property Managers (NARPM), Dr. Stephen Fuller, an economist with George Mason University shared that he expected the "roommate trend" to continue and increase for the following reasons:


  1. Young professionals have seen their parents struggle with the financial challenges of home ownership and are not inclined to purchase a home.  They will be more likely to be renters than owners for the next several years.
  2. These same young professionals want to save money (especially in their 401Ks) and like to have discretionary funds for recreation and eating out.  They will prefer to keep their housing expenses at a minimum by sharing expenses with a friend.
  3. Adults in Generation Y are getting married and starting a family much later, so during their twenties, they are focused on lifestyle.  They want to live in a nice neighborhood that is close to work and close to their friends.  Pooling funds to rent a home with roommates helps achieve that goal.

Like most other Property Management Companies, we have criteria in place for evaluating applications submitted by unrelated adults (except in areas where fair housing laws do not allow for this distinction).  As this segment of the rental market grows, we’ll closely monitor the risk level associated with the roommate scenario to determine if we need to adjust our evaluation criteria. 

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