The high cost of housing means more people are being priced out of not only owning a home but also renting alone. The share of adults 65 and over looking to rent with a roommate has tripled in the past decade, according to the listings site SpareRoom.
“They’re not the biggest group of roommates, but they’re by far the fastest growing,” said the site’s communications director, Matt Hutchinson.
SpareRoom finds that roommates in general are skewing older. Young people are living with their parents longer, unable to afford moving out or simply trying to save up. Meanwhile, more people in their 50s, 60s and older are unable to make it on their own.
I am SO thankful i live in government housing. My house is a tiny shoebox, but I only pay $500 a month for it. if i had to try to live in a private rental, I’d literally be on a park bench.
Good. Maybe they’ll finally vote to make building housing easier instead of fucking over their children.
Republicans will designate a scapegoat minority and old people will buy it.
Democrats will follow suit because they don’t want to lose the votes of the elderly, and another minority will go under the bus.
If my mother is any indication, nope.
I am 63 and planned it so even if I lost almost everything I still have a place to live. It is my land and my trailer paid for free and clear. It might be a shithole but it is my shithole.
What about property taxes?
350 bucks a year
What about heat, electricity, internet, video games, cable TV, streaming services, books, water, sewage, human food, and dog food?
I have heat and AC and internet. I quit playing video games a while back. I will long on to Star Trek Online once in awhile and fly my ship around but that is about it. I have plenty of books and food. No dogs but the cats in the neighborhood are taken car of. Some of them even made it in the house. I do wish I had someone to come in to clean but the prices have gotten out of hand. I do what I want and go where I want. I come home feed the cats and doomscroll for a while. Sometimes I watch Youtube videos on Forgotten Weapons or some Tolkien channel I am subbed to. Since my divorce 15 years ago I have learned to be comfortable alone. I have not been on a date in 14 years and don’t plan on ever going on one again. Any friends that I have had have either died or shown themselves to be MAGA. I am sure that one day they will find what is left of me sitting in a chair and I am fine with that. They can stack me on the comic book collection that my nephews do not want and send me off to Valhalla.
If you add music and occasional roleplaying, this would also be a pretty great retirement for me. Hopefully my gaming group won’t go fascist on me.
Well played! I hope you enjoy many years of contentment.
Solar + heatpump + septic tank + water cistern + garden can handle or offset several of those, but not all of them. High upfront costs for the above, but they all pay off in the 3-10 year time frame.
Food banks can provide both types of food you list. Internet may be low income plans or asking a neighor for wifi access. Piracy + vpn can replace streaming. Libraries can fill the gap for other entertainment.
There are individual/community options for all of the above if you have some money at some point or ar least engage with the people around you.
My partner and I split. Want a roommate?
Nothing against you but I prefer to live alone. I don’t even want a GF.
Lol I was just teasing but I appreciate your very compassionate response.
For years there were opinion pieces in publications about how much better renting is than buying. Financial experts made the case that the expense of purchasing and maintenance weren’t worth any benefits of ownership, especially in the long term. After dealing with big rent increases, insane landlords, and apartments being shown while I was living in them I wasn’t convinced. When adding in the relative stability in the of costs of ownership I always thought those experts were full of crap.
Turns out none of those articles took sudden increases in property values and rent into account. Trying to rent an apartment for someone on a moderate fixed income in my area has become damn near impossible. Rents have gone up ~60% in 5 years far exceeding the COL increases most people see from retirement income or even the raises they may be getting from their employers if they’re working.
Buying a home was one of the best financial decisions I’ve ever made.
sounds like the articles, “saying you should rent forever”, is probably propaganda pieces paid for by the same companies that want to buy up all the houses
Renting makes sense if the monthly cost is significantly less than what it costs to buy AND you save the difference and invest it. The last part is key, because it makes your retirement income higher and thus able to handle increasing rents. If you don’t save the difference (including if you are unable to), then you are actually falling behind.
Another factor that needs to be considered is multi-family housing vs single-family, which is a distinction that is separate from the rent vs buy discussion.
Fwiw, I’m firmly in the “rent MFH, buy SFH”. I don’t want to buy a condo or rent a house.
The US is really on the far end of the scale for people living alone (11%, compared to the world average of 4%, https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/03/31/with-billions-confined-to-their-homes-worldwide-which-living-arrangements-are-most-common/). I see a lot of articles like “people can’t afford a 1br any more”, but I never see anyone else ask the question of whether they should.
Why shouldn’t they? Why should someone have to be married or have roommates to have somewhere to live?
It’s a complex topic that the person you replied to only introduced briefly.
We have a loneliness epidemic and it’s expensive to live in isolation. There is a middle ground between the two that would fit both your pov and the one the person you are replying to is scratching the surface of.
It’s undeniable that some people just get progressively unhealthy when they live alone. But that’s not true for everyone, for sure. But we did evolve to live in tribes and support each other.
No one is attacking the idea of living alone. They are just saying that it’s worth further examination.
This person is likely not participating a conspiracy to force you into communal housing or to have babies.
the original poster say, asking they should not be able to afford to live on thier own, thats why he got the downvotes.
I’m not saying they should have to. I’m questioning why living alone seems to be the new “American dream”, and anything else is looked down upon.
thats not what you said in your original comment, you said should they even afford to live alone, you were implying they should not be able to AFFORD it all living in a 1 br apartment .
