America has officially reached its rent-affordability breaking point. Across the country, renters are watching prices rise far faster than their paychecks, while homeowners struggle with increasing mortgage payments, insurance premiums, and everyday expenses. And according to our data from Diggz, this pressure is fundamentally changing the way Americans live, move, and share their homes.
As CEO, Rany Burstein puts it – plain and simple:
“Affordability pressure is reshaping behavior on both sides of the market. Renters are sharing longer, and homeowners are sharing sooner.”
What’s emerging is a new housing ecosystem – one built around shared living and a generation of Americans rethinking what “home” looks like.
The Average Rent Burdened American
Gone are the days when “30% of your income on rent” was the golden rule for affordability. Today, if you’re managing to keep it under 50%, you’re among the lucky ones.
Over the past few years, rent inflation has dramatically outpaced wage growth, especially in cities like New York, where incomes have risen but rents have skyrocketed even faster. For most Americans, spending less than half their paycheck on housing has become nearly impossible.
A recent MarketWatch analysis, which Diggz participated in, highlights why the rent burden has reached this tipping point:
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- Wages haven’t kept pace with rents. Even full-time workers are falling behind as rents climb faster than incomes.
- Housing supply is too low. Demand far outstrips availability, pushing prices up across the country.
According to Diggz data, average renter budgets have only risen about 4% since 2019, while rents have jumped nearly 30%. This widening gap has reshaped how and where people live.
So…what has this rent burden set in motion across the housing market?
1. Moving and Chasing Affordability
When budgets stop rising but rents don’t, people start moving. The first big shift is migration.
That’s exactly what’s happening across the U.S. right now. The Diggz data shows a clear migration pattern: renters are leaving high-cost coastal cities like New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco and heading toward more affordable Sun Belt and secondary metros.
These shifts aren’t just reshaping individual lives – they’re redistributing renters across the entire housing map of America.
As Rany Burstein notes, “The rent-burden story has gone national.”
What used to be an NYC or L.A. affordability problem is now everyone’s problem, and people are adapting in creative ways.
2. Shared Living Isn’t Just for 20-Somethings Anymore
One of the most surprising consequences of this affordability squeeze? Shared housing has aged up.
Since 2019, the share of Diggz users aged 50 and above has nearly tripled, the fastest growth of any age group. Meanwhile, the share of under-30 users has actually dropped from 80% to 61%.
That means more middle-aged professionals, divorced adults, and even retirees are entering the roommate market. Many are homeowners themselves, opening up spare rooms to offset rising mortgage, insurance, and utility costs.
Take Dana, a 67-year-old retiree from Ormond Beach, FL. After his disabled son passed away, he suddenly found himself living alone and facing housing costs that were much higher than his Social Security check. To stay afloat, he transformed his small two-bedroom trailer into a shared home, even turning his living room into his own bedroom so he could rent out the second room to someone else.
Stories like Dana’s show how shared living has become a stabilizing option for people navigating loss, reduced work hours, or rising costs – not just for people in their 20s figuring life out.
In cities such as Charlotte, Tampa, and Phoenix, this trend is especially strong. Diggz CEO, Rany Burstein, says,
“We’ve seen a 3–4x increase in users over 50 since 2019. Many are homeowners or retirees offsetting rising costs. Roommates aren’t just for 20-somethings anymore. They’re for anyone trying to make the math work.”
What Rent Burden Looks Like for Homeowners
As renters stretch to make ends meet, many homeowners are adapting too. The result? A new wave of live-in landlords. With higher mortgage payments, rising insurance, and everyday costs climbing, more owners are choosing to rent out spare rooms to stay financially stable.
In 2025, Diggz sees 38% of all room listings now coming from homeowners, and over 80% of those are live-in owners. Instead of leasing entire properties, they’re opening up the homes they already live in.
In cities like Houston, Charlotte, and Tampa, these numbers reach as high as 95%. For many owners, monetizing an unused bedroom is the difference between staying in their homes or being priced out.
Take Kay, a 54-year-old homeowner in South Daytona, FL. After a medical crisis forced her to leave her job, rising insurance and taxes made her home difficult to keep. She rents out two rooms, offering one tenant a discount in exchange for help caring for her rescue dog.
“There have been nights I’ve cried myself to sleep,” she says, “but renting my rooms is what lets me stay in the home I worked so hard for.”
As for renters, this shift opens up a wider range of stable, home-like living situations often with better amenities, quieter environments, and more flexible terms than traditional rentals.
Realtors are seeing this play out on the ground, too. Matias Baker, a Los Angeles–based agent
“In LA, absolutely. More homeowners are renting out rooms to cover high mortgage payments, tax increases, and insurance costs. Even renters are splitting apartments to survive big rent jumps. There’s much less stigma now. Rising costs pushed a lot of long-time owners, including older homeowners, to rent rooms for the first time.”
3. Coliving Operators Are Scaling Up — Fast
As both renters and homeowners hit the limits of what they can afford, coliving has quietly become one of the most practical solutions to the rent burden for all generations.
Economists are noticing the same shift. Zillow’s economist Cheryl Young notes that as more older adults turn to shared housing and millennials continue renting longer, the traditional path: graduate, rent for a few years, buy a home in the suburbs – is slipping out of reach. She predicts that this shift may even reshape the suburbs themselves. It can drive the rise of multiuse suburban hubs that combine housing with entertainment, services, and community spaces.
But, if older adults are moving into shared homes and younger adults aren’t buying single-family houses at the same rate, the question becomes: who will live in all those suburban homes in the future?
This isn’t just a theoretical concern. Cities and developers are already adapting.
New York City, for example, is exploring regulated co-living–style micro-units to battle the housing crisis. They are looking to build more small single rooms with shared kitchens and bathrooms, capped at three rooms per shared space.
“We’re trying to make housing more affordable and create more supply,” said Ahmed Tigani, acting commissioner of the housing department.
Developers like Greystar, Peakmade, and the nationally expanding Flow are scaling fast to meet this demand. Today, Diggz tracks over 4,370 available coliving rooms across 27 metros, and an estimated +100,000 total coliving rooms across the U.S. This makes “co-living” one of the fastest-growing segments of the shared housing market.
What’s driving this surge is simple economics.
In most cities, coliving offers rents that are noticeably lower than traditional studios. The average coliving room is about $1,183, compared to roughly $1,500 for a studio. For example, coliving rooms in Indianapolis can be as low as $576, while Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, and Tampa hover under $900. Even in the country’s costliest markets, coliving provides relief: $1,822 in NYC, $1,406 in San Francisco, and $1,283 in Los Angeles — all far below the price of renting solo.
According to Diggz CEO Rany Burstein:
“Coliving isn’t just a coastal lifestyle product anymore – it’s an affordability solution spreading across the country.”
Conclusion: A New Way of Living
America’s rent crisis isn’t easing, but people are getting smarter about how they adapt. Renters are sharing longer, homeowners are sharing sooner, and coliving operators are scaling fast to meet a nationwide need for affordable, flexible housing.
The future isn’t just about finding a place you can afford – it’s about finding people to share it with. As shared living becomes the new normal, Diggz is helping renters, homeowners, and coliving communities connect in ways that make the math and the lifestyle work.
Shared housing isn’t a last resort anymore. It’s the solution that’s reshaping how America lives.