If you’re worried about the finite time you have with your kids before they leave home for good, don’t panic. They might be living with you for a lot longer than you expected. I should know, I’m 27 and have joined the trend of grown-up children moving back home.
Last year, it emerged that 620,000 more people are living with their parents than a decade ago. UK rent prices are higher than they have ever been, and if we thought a Labour government was going to offer a quick fix with rent caps and an immediate ban on no-fault evictions, that's hasn't quite happened yet.
It’s a bleak, competitive and extortionately expensive world out there, no wonder so many people are crawling back to their childhood bedrooms. Renters in London face paying an average of £983 per month for a room, hiked up at the whims of landlords they have little to no contact with, and are competing with people who over-offer on flats they’ve never even seen. In other parts of the country, it’s not much better. The average cost of rent in the UK rose by 9% in the 12 months to February this year – the highest annual increase since records began in 2015.
I moved home in May after three years of renting because the price of my tiny moth-infested bedroom in a house-share had increased at a rate my wages had not. Finding it increasingly stressful to get from month to month living in London, and aware that rent all around me (and even further away) would swallow two thirds of my salary, I gave my parents a call – it turns out they had been expecting one.
I’m lucky enough that they live on the other side of London, and we have a good relationship, so it’s not something I had to quit my job for or spend too long contemplating. Aside from my mum judging my taste in television and saying, ‘You’re not watching that crap again, are you?’ as the Love Island credits roll, we are all getting on just fine. A lot of people are not in this position and are forced to wait out the current crisis in grim flat-shares with people they don’t always know and often don’t get along with, or struggle month to month to make ends meet.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) refers to people like me as ‘adult children’, this term is a little undignified for my liking, I prefer ‘familial tenant’ or ‘family-home-lover’. It’s easy to paint us all as Kevin and Perry-esque teenagers with arrested development, who eat all the nice bread, expect our washing to be done for us and don’t know how to read the gas metre. In my case, only one of those things is true.
Where once adults living with their parents were unemployed, saving to buy or in between accommodation, the current state of affairs is a lot more complicated. Lee Layton, head of operational real estate research at Colliers, says, ‘There is a desperate need for more rental housing. In the five years to the end of 2023, the population of England grew by 1.8 million people, while during the same period, the number of privately rented homes increased by just 65,000 homes. Were it not for emerging "Built-To-Rent" market delivering 100,000 new rental homes during this period, the number of rental homes would have actually fallen.’
If there aren’t even enough places to rent, let alone enough affordable places or ones that don’t make you gag as you open the door, then parents around the UK should be on guard. More people than ever are moving home and, now, they might not have plans to leave.
Talia, 27, a teaching assistant at a Special Educational Needs (SEN) school, is one such person. She lives with her mum in North London and has no plans to move out. ‘It feels like throwing money down the drain. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to save enough, unless I go into fintech, to buy a property without parental help. I’m choosing to prioritise saving for travel and enjoying living in London over living out, because it doesn't feel like a choice with the career I’ve chosen.’
Similarly, Patrice, 36, decided to move back in with her parents two years ago when she changed jobs and started a master’s degree. ‘With a lower paying job, I couldn’t cover my rent in south London. I’m grateful and fortunate that my parents allowed me to move back, but now that I’m ready to move back out, it seems impossible. It’s disheartening that, as someone in my 30s, I might struggle to afford housing, and it’s especially hard as a single person.’
With one in four London families having an ‘adult child’ in the house and more than 3.8 million adults living with their parents across England and Wales, it’s worth considering what long-term effects it will have on people’s mental health.
Maintaining a sense of autonomy when you’re living under the same roof as your parents, or sleeping in your childhood bed, is not always easy. Nor is it helped when it’s so difficult to imagine an alternative. Suddenly a temporary solution to save money becomes indefinite, which can take its toll. ‘My mum is constantly telling me that it’s unhealthy for a woman of my age to be living with their mum and that I need financial responsibilities,’ adds Talia. ‘We get along really well, but it’s still hard.’
A Hyde Housing study from January this year found that two in five 18 to 34-year-olds said they had postponed life decisions, such as starting a family, because of uncertainty around where they would live. Across all age groups, a quarter of people in England said they had delayed a life decision because of housing uncertainty. This increased to two in five people in London.
As a 27-year-old living at home out of necessity, I understand. It’s hard to feel overly optimistic about the future. When I moved home, I had in my mind that I’d stay for six months. As time passes by, I am less sure. I’m also enjoying the time I get to spend with my parents and the way our dynamic has changed now that I've left and come back. And they have a garden. And there’s always loo roll in the house.
But if rents continue to skyrocket at the rate they currently are, I don’t know when or where I will be able to live next – at least not without putting myself back into the situation I’ve just walked away from.
Living comfortably and independently should not be something only high-earners or people supported by their relatives are able to do. It’s basic housing we’re talking about, not yachting around the Med. People should be able to rent without compromising their mental health or their quality of life. And for those who can’t, you can understand why Mum and Dad’s is so appealing.
Nikki Peach is a writer at Grazia UK, covering TV, celebrity interviews, news and features.