What ever happened to share houses?

[anthraxia]

A friend in her early 20s is agonising because she's under a great deal of pressure from her mother and (mostly) her mother's partner to move out of home. While I empathise with her feelings, especially with her feelings of being unwanted and forced to leave her home, part of me wants to tell her 'the world is not a secure place, and you need to

Comments

[omnot]

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that share housing is not as attractive (or feasible) as it was a decade or so ago because the cost of rent has gone up so much, and the availability of well located places has reduced.

Which won't make it easier for people to move into their own places either, mind, but that bridge is yet to be recognised by the people in question as being quite so difficult to cross.

[doushkasmum]

I would think that the cost going up would make people more likely to want to share, so as to cover that cost.

[omnot]

I expect that over the last decade or so, with the real estate boom replacing nearly all the run-down student houses a couple of blocks from the tram/train with sets of mock-tuscan villas, accommodation cost has increased beyond a point where the number of people required to pay the rent on a livable property has far exceeded the number of people the owner/agent will permit to live in the house

[anthraxia]

I think that's part of it, but there's more to it than that. I've taken part in a few conversations with some 19 year olds, and they won't even consider share housing. It's almost like they consider it degrading. (I should add that those people tend to be acquaintences/classmates rather than friends.) Certainly proportionally Austudy/Newstart is not as much as it used to be (it's now less than unemployment benefit.) I do wonder how much of it is because of how Austudy has been mangled: when it was first introduced, you started getting it at 16, assuming your parents didn't earn too much, and the amount you got was increased each year until you turned 25. Then the age to get the maximum amount was brought down to 21. Now you have to be 25 to get it at all. That annoys the hell out of me; we're legally independent at 18, why on earth should there be this expectation that if one is studying, one's parents MUST be financially responsible for you until you are 25, regardless of whether you live at home or not

[doushkasmum]

That is an interesting question. I certainly lived in a shared house the first tiem I moved out of my parent's house. I moved back in for uni and then moved interstate. Into a shared house at first. It was certainly valuable learning about being organised and getting the housework done. The point about your realtionship with your parents is very true. You need to move out to become a proper grown-up.

The only 20 something I know well is MrsBrown's eldest, who is in a share house with his partner and several other people. I see adds for shared houses all over the uni notice boards. Perhaps it is less common in your neck of the woods? Or perhaps I am not hanging with the right people to see it?

[anthraxia]

There are certainly still share houses around, but far fewer of them, and many of those I know who are in their early 20s and are out of home do tend to come from similar backgrounds to MrsBrown's family, or else they are country kids, from interstate or overseas.

I'm stunned by how many Adelaide Uni students I know live up in the hills, orout Elizabeth or Hallet Cove way, who spend hours each day going back and forth on buses! "In My Day" (she says, feeling ancient) that was the first reason for getting out of home - living closer to Uni! I know people going to Flinders who live with their parents in Gawler, and people studying at the Levels who are living with family in Norlunga! Makes no sense to me...

[frankiefan13]

I've bounced - I moved out with Andrew, to a house we were looking after, and stayed to house-share. When we had a friend who needed flatmates we moved in with him, then when the owners wanted the house back we moved back in with our parents, and in a few weeks we move to our own place

[anthraxia]

I think it's a combination of reluctance to leave the comfort zone and extreme reduction of peer pressure, rather than laziness per se. And what you describe - jumping back and forth - was pretty common then too (it's what I did, certainly.)

I don't think it's 'being spoiled' but rather something in how our society works and sees things has changed, so we no longer look at 20-somethings living with their parents in the same way.

[excelisdecays]

I was going to move out of home with at least one friend of mine, and we had begun to look for a place as he had a reasonably steady income and i had gotten my first job in 5 or so years (if you don't count all the volunteer work i did as president of the clubs association :P) and i was moving into a PhD that has a reliable income. However the option of getting a single bedroom unit came up, was offered to me and without any hesitation. I jumped at the chance to move out (though it was slightly delayed

[anthraxia]

I admit you are one of the people I was thinking of. But that is in two ways; 20 years ago someone in your situation would have known 20+ different share houses, and there would have been someone in your social circle looking for a flatmate roughly every 3 months. Moreover, even if there wasn't a place in a shared house you knew of then and there, you probably would have known one or two other people who were looking to move out, and once the word went out that you were looking for another room mate, friends would be connecting you with other people in the same position, and would be recommending areas or houses they knew that were coming up for rent.

Because that network isn't there any more, it's actually harder to set up a shared house any more.

[excelisdecays]

Yes, and the problem is everyone wants to live on their own or with their partner, and so the shared house never happens. I wanted out, but i needed a real kick to get out and a place being essentially handed to me was that impetus. It meant i moved out a good 6 months before i had planned to. I think its true of a lot of people that, even if you dislike whats going on you are in a comfort zone that is hard to get out of.

[shellbun]

Have to agree with you hun. I was out of the nest by 17, shared for as long as I could tolerate it and independent and alone as soon as faintly possible. I didn't face pressure to, but I was indeed bursting to leave home. Somewhere there's been an attitude change to getting out of your parents' home and I'm not sure where it's come from either.