The rental market is going through a massive shift. During the first half of this year, it was almost impossible to find a living room, as about a third of all residences listed on the flat-sharing website SpareRoom lacked one. This trend is indicative of a larger trend impacting the rental property market – especially with younger, budget-conscious tenants. As the cost of living rises, many renters are adapting to homes without traditional communal spaces, often resulting in more affordable rent.
For Hannah Carney, 26-year-old renter, there’s never been a home with a living room. Since turning 18, she’s never had this key space in any of her past rental units. She sublets a three-room apartment without a living room, an arrangement she says is becoming the norm among her classmates. Developing places to foster community spirit I wish I could say that every property needs to include a shared space. I really hope that’s the case, but I’m aware that it’s not a practical expectation,” she said.
Ella Murray, 22, lives with three other renters in a mutual home in London. With no interior living room, she is thankful for the lower rent. “At this stage in my life I’m not willing to sacrifice money for more space,” she explained. Murray mentioned that, anecdotally, it’s the norm within her social circle for rental units in London to miss common such spaces.
And with no lounge, renters have had to adjust how they socialize. One of the flatmates, Carney herself, usually entertains friends in their kitchen, which serves as an impromptu laundry room. At the other end of the city, Murray and her flatmate Maisy eat their meals around a formica topped kitchen table covered with a floral blue table cloth. They understand that their meetings and gatherings would be much better attended if they had a living room available.
Chris Norris, the chief policy officer at the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA), calls it an “existential” issue. The lack of rental units on the market is the primary driver propelling this trend. The latest data from UK property portal Rightmove shows there are, on average, ten would-be tenants fighting over each available rental property. Norris remarked that “with rising costs and the expectation of smaller margins to contend with, some landlords will certainly be looking at how to use their investments most efficiently.”
Although this approach has obvious cost-saving advantages for renting homes without lounges, specialists caution that it might have long-term social impacts. Matt Hutchinson, director of SpareRoom, focused on the plight of renters pushed to live and work in small, crowded quarters. “A lack of communal space means many renters are living and working in one bedroom, putting them at risk of social isolation,” he stated. Hutchinson brought attention to the importance of maintaining shared spaces in multifamily properties. He cautioned that without these spaces, narratives of the friendships cultivated in these communal residences would soon be relegated to the history books.
In case anyone missed it, recent reports indicated that average monthly private sector rents in the UK rose by 5.5%. By September this year the average rent had hit £1,354. Yet this steep rent increase puts even more pressure on worsening economic conditions on renters, especially those with narrow budgets. Most of the people I talk to who want to socialize outside of their homes think this is a real “false economy.” They contend it can result in costs exceeding those incurred from just having fun with friends in a common room.
