A new look at roommate searches suggests affordability pressures are pushing Americans out of big-city apartments and into suburban and commuter towns. SpareRoom says searches across 2025 jumped versus 2024, with sharp increases in parts of Dallas-Fort Worth,
For years, roommate life has felt like a big-city rite of passage. Now it’s spreading outward, into neighborhoods where people used to plan for their own lease—and sometimes their own home.
An analysis from SpareRoom. an online roommate search tool. finds that more Americans are looking for shared housing farther from downtown. The company says small cities are seeing more than double the number of users searching for roommates compared with years past. It also points to a surge in suburban and commuter communities around larger metros. as households try to reduce living costs.
SpareRoom said sharing is the most affordable way to rent, and that even roommates are “migrating away from pricier cities and downtown areas.” In a release accompanying the analysis, the company said it examined more than 16 million roommate searches in 2025, compared with 2024.
The shift shows up strongly in parts of the Sun Belt. Around Dallas-Fort Worth, roommate searches are up 145% in Rockwall, and have roughly doubled in Tomball and Conroe. The same region’s rental market has been getting heavier: an interactive rent tracker described in the source reports that rental costs in the DFW metro have risen 15% since the pandemic.
Around Atlanta, where prices are up 17% since the pandemic, SpareRoom reported searches climbing in suburbs including Dunwoody (+201%), Brookhaven (+176%), and Sandy Springs (+162%).
The company’s explanation connects the affordability squeeze to a longer timeline of who’s sharing. The release said the suburban Sun Belt lifestyle “may also correspond with the rising number of people who find themselves sharing a home in their 40s. 50s and beyond. ” priced out of home ownership and renting solo.
SpareRoom previously reported that people aged 45 and above made up roughly one-tenth of the overall roommate market a decade ago, but now account for nearly a quarter of it.
The pattern isn’t confined to the South. Around New York City, the Coney Island section of Brooklyn—one of the farthest parts of the city from Manhattan—saw roommate searches up 106%. On Long Island, inquiries for the Ronkonkoma area were up 128%.
The numbers land on a broader affordability reality. As of 2023, a total of one-half of all renters were “cost-burdened,” meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on housing and utilities. The source specifies that this includes 27% who spend more than half of their income on those expenses.
What’s striking across the locations is the direction of travel: roommate searches rise as rents and pricing pressure rise. and the search for shared housing extends beyond the places where young adults have long relied on it. The result is a new housing map—less defined by city limits and more defined by monthly affordability.
rents roommate searches SpareRoom housing affordability suburbs Dallas-Fort Worth Atlanta New York City commuter communities rental costs cost-burdened renters