Number of pensioners living in house shares rising

 Interview with Anna Jone and Kamali Melbourne on Sky News.

Anna: A flatshare is something you think about doing in your twenties, right, but what about a Pensioners living in a flatshare?

Kamali: Well, currently only 6% of pensioners currently live in shared accommodation, but the Pensions Policy Institute expects this to triple in the next 15 years.

Joining us now is Nick Henley who is Co founder of Cohabitas – am I saying that rightly?

So we’re going to see an increase in older people going into flatshares – just when I think about flatshares, I think about my student house and that being a complete disaster area mess – it’s not going to be like that for the old generation or is it?

Nick: Well, it depends on what happens I think. There’s a lot of factors that have driven the situation as it is; economic factors being one, but also changing marital status. If you look at the ONS stats, there’s been a 55% increase in the number of people who are not married, either through divorce or separation, but also never married.

Anna: So would they flatshare for company or financial related reasons?

Nick: That’s a good question. We’ve asked all the people that visit the site, to say the main reason they are there, and 75% of people mentioned that it is to do with financial reasons as the primary reason. But for 25% it’s a social factor, and in fact we started the site more of the social end of it, through concern for loneliness of older people. We soon realised that what we’re trying to do actually affected many many different age groups. Different cohorts who a little younger than 60.

Kamali: You’re quite specific are you, about that what the type of accommodation and where it’s located – or I mean tell us about how it works.

Nick: Not at all not at all. It’s just a platform and meeting place for people. People are free to register and anyone over 40 –  you have to be 40+. Which I’ll come back to why it is set up like – yes, you can come and register on the site and do one of two things.

You can either register to advertiser a room to let in your own home. Primarily live-in landlords, although we do get some private landlords. That’s quite a distinct thing compared to other rental platforms. Or you can advertise yourself to find a flatmate to do what we call ‘buddy up’, because one of the problems you confront when you’re an older house sharer or someone who wants to get a room in a house share, is that young people don’t want to live with you.

Another interviewer joked with me about this a few months back and said “Well who wants to live with their dad?” and I said “Well it’s mutual! I mean it works both ways round.

So the reason we started Cohabitas was mainly around loneliness, but we soon found that financial conditions are driving it and that has had a big effect on it.

Kamali:  I don’t know, but economic concerns will only worsen, whether there’s shortage of housing, that this labour government is not going to hit their housing target of 1.5 million new homes being built, so we’re going to have a shortage of housing continuing at least the next parliament if not further. So I mean this could worsen.

Nick: It’s debateable whether a shortage of housing is the issue. Particularly with with what we’re doing, where we’re interested in live-in house owners renting out a room in their own home –  and those homes exist already.

So what we have is really problem right sizing. There are a lot of older people who were able to buy their house and are living in houses that are bigger than they need. Now they are quite right that they want to stay in their homes, and one way to stay in your home if you can’t afford to stay there is to rent that room.

Conversely there are a lot of people over 60 who have not been able to buy; they just can’t do that, and that the cohorts behind in the 40-50 and 50-60 age groups are even less likely to be able to do.

Anna: So what about the over 65s, or those who have retired? I mean it’s a worry isn’t it having to find the rent though. It is really tough.

Nick: The costs of renting are far greater than owning your own home, paying a mortgage and or even just paying your bills. It’s much greater you know; over twice. And if you’re a single person occupant as well it’s almost impossible.

The main problem when you get older – I’m in my 60s now myself – is that your earnings are not going to go up, unless of course you’re in some type of high end business and then of course you don’t need to house share. So your earnings are not going to go up, but as the costs of rent increase and indeed other living expenses increase it does start to focus the mind! You start thinking about how am I going to afford this when I’m older.

What will happen is that many of those people will fall into social housing if they’re not able to look after themselves. Governments are making provision, or increasing provision, but I think we will see more sharing in private households for sure.

Anna: It’s really interesting hearing from you and something I wasn’t aware of, but also thanks for coming in and telling stories about it.

Kamali: Yes, thanks and good luck.

Interview on Friday 12th Dec, 2025

No link to the video is possible as there was a £3,000 usage fee. A shame.