When people think of roommates, they often call to mind the TV show Friends. In the popular imagination, roommates are fun, young, and single, filling the time between college graduation and settling down, marrying, and buying a home. But that view is largely out of date.
"The proportion of over 65s looking for roommates and rooms in shared rentals has more than tripled in the past decade — the biggest increase of any age group," says SpareRoom in its latest survey report. Last year, those 45 and over made up nearly one in four roommates; a decade earlier, they comprised just over one in 10.
Although still small in absolute numbers, those 65+ years made up 4.4% of all roommates in 2025, up from 1.3% in 2015.
Those data might bring to mind an earlier TV show, The Golden Girls. And many boomer roommates certainly do live with other boomers. But many others share with much younger people in multigenerational households.
What's Driving the Rise of Boomer Roommates?
SpareRoom blames the increase in older folk sharing accommodation squarely on the affordability crisis. Its report says:
"In an August 2025 survey of 1,257 U.S. roommates, 54% said they were spending 40% or more of their take-home pay on rent. Living with roommates has always been the cheapest way to rent, and yet a sizable proportion — 42% — of survey respondents described their rent as 'unaffordable'. Over half (56%) were earning less than $50,000 per year."
Others concur. When NPR reporters looked at the survey, they contacted Jennifer Molinsky, a specialist in ageing and housing at the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, for her view.
"Older adults are more likely to be housing-cost burdened than working-age adults, and that gets more severe with age," Molinsky told NPR. "It's climbed up the income scale. So more and more, you know, middle-income people are struggling with housing costs than ever before."
Are Boomer Roommates Paying for Their Irresponsibility?
No doubt some boomer roommates are now regretting being financially irresponsible when they were younger. If only they'd saved more and built bigger pensions.
But many did everything right and still find themselves struggling to make ends meet. NPR spoke to Caezilia Loibl, who chairs the Consumer Sciences Program at Ohio State University. She studies the impact of chronic illness and the loss of a spouse in older age.
It's easy to imagine husbands or wives pushing themselves to the edge of bankruptcy or beyond to care for their beloved, only for that person to die. "The shock is enormous," Loibl told NPR, "and we see it very clearly in our data how the debt burden goes up and financial vulnerability goes up."
One of Loibl's studies looked at the financial effect of type 2 diabetes on patients' finances. "Findings showed diabetes patients fared worse on all seven financial outcomes studied, including below-prime credit scores, medical and non-medical debt in collections, 60-plus-day delinquent debt, debt charge-offs, bankruptcy filings and foreclosure," according to Ohio State University's report of the work.
"Studies have shown that 20-25% of adults with diabetes have rationed insulin, while approximately 30% have rationed diabetes supplies," the report continues. "In addition, diabetes patients often don’t follow care recommendations and have lower health care use, partly because of financial concerns."
So, it's generally unwise to blame boomer roommates without knowing their stories. Most of us might one day be in the same boat.
Multigenerational Roommates
Multigeneration sharing happens when the oldest resident in a home is at least 20 years older than the youngest. And that's happening more and more, according to SpareRoom.
A whopping 39% of all roommates now live in a multigenerational home, using the 20-year definition. And 27% are sharing where the age gap is 30 years or more.
Such arrangements can benefit both parties when the roommates are compatible. Sometimes, the older person is the landlord and shares to boost their income. But there are advantages to both sides, according to a Washington Post article from 2022, which stressed the lifetime friendships that often develop.
"Contributing to that trend is that more young people are priced out of the housing market and more seniors want to age in place, said Donna Butts, executive director of Generations United, a D.C.-based organization that focuses on programs and policies that connect generations," said the Post.
"Sometimes, just having somebody around to walk the dog and have a meal with a few times a week can make a huge difference for an older adult," Butts told the Post.
Read Aging in Place: What It Really Takes for Seniors to Stay in Their Homes.
Advantages of Roommating Later in Life
Realtor.com interviewed Matt Hutchinson, communications director for SpareRoom.
"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," Hutchinson told Realtor.com.
"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,' Hutchinson continued. "And then after two or three months, they'd see the lights and think, 'Great, people to talk to!'"
While having a roommate may no doubt be off-putting to some seniors, it might just be an ideal solution, both financially and socially, for others.
