For Caroline Lee and Collin Wang, moving in together after dating for eight months was a matter of coincidence and improvisation.
In the fall of last year, Mr. Wang, 28, was finishing his final year of medical school at the University of California, Los Angeles, when he discovered that the two-bedroom apartment he was living in with a roommate had a mold infestation. He had to vacate immediately, but had trouble finding a new home.
“It was very hard to find something that was close enough to campus that was also reasonably priced, and that was in the middle of the school year,” said Mr. Wang, who had reached UCLA’s three-year limit on student housing, which allowed him to rent for $1,425 a month instead of the market rate of $2,000 or more.
At the same time, Ms. Li, 24, a registered nurse, learned that one of her two roommates was moving out of their $5,000-a-month, three-bedroom apartment near Santa Monica, Calif. Halfway through their lease, Ms. Li and Mr. Wang realized they could solve both of their issues by persuading Mr. Wang to move in with Ms. Li and her roommate.
Ms. Li and the roommate each pay $1,750 a month, and Mr. Wang pays $1,500.
“I think it was always planned that Colin and I would move here when he finished his residency, not when he graduated from medical school,” Ms. Lee said. “But I think the opportunity came up earlier, and we were able to keep this apartment and save some money while doing so.”
Ms Li and Mr Wang are among many young couples choosing to live together early in their relationships to save money on housing and living costs. low inventory of affordable housing, intense competition between buyers and tenants, Slow decline in rental prices And Rising Mortgage RatesYoung people across the country are being inspired to find creative ways to afford housing.
“The younger generation really needs to be frugal and look for ways to reduce their housing costs, especially in the big cities where rents are still very high and home prices are very high,” he said. Hannah JonesSenior Economic Research Analyst for Realtor.com.
According to a recent report survey According to a survey from Realtor.com, 80 percent of Generation Z respondents and 76 percent of Millennials living with a romantic partner said finances or logistics, or both, contributed to their decision.
Ms. Li and Mr. Wang's apartment is on the top floor of a mid-rise building that also has a gym. Their apartment has in-unit laundry and modern appliances, and it is close to the beach and major highways. They split the cost of monthly utilities and groceries equally with their other roommate.
“When I got here they let me do a little bit of work because I didn’t get any pay until recently,” said Mr. Wang, who just started his residency program and owes more than $200,000 to medical school.
Ms. Li and Mr. Wang said that since living together, they have improved their communication and become better at prioritizing quality time together. But they continue to work on merging their lifestyles.
“Even with roommates, you have to respect each other's boundaries and everybody else's too,” Ms. Lee said. “But when it's your partner, I think the space you share is much more intimate.”
While sharing rent expenses has its benefits, living together can create problems right at the beginning of the relationship if the couple doesn’t have a good understanding of each other’s communication styles and conflict resolution skills. Nicole OsequedaDr. , a licensed marriage and family therapist in Chicago.
“If there are significant differences and there’s no basis for talking about difficult things, whether it’s financial or something else, it can exacerbate the tensions you’re already feeling,” said Ms. Osqueda, who specializes in working with young adults and young couples during life transitions.
After seven months of dating, 26-year-old Kaitlin Cadagin and her 28-year-old boyfriend moved into a one-bedroom apartment in a high-rise building in downtown Chicago.
Their apartment rented for $2,400 a month and had several amenities, including a dog run, a conference room and in-unit laundry. The couple decided to split their rent based on their income: Ms. Cadagin, an event manager, paid $1,000 a month, and her boyfriend, a licensed attorney, paid the remaining $1,400.
“I went in saying, ‘I can pay my share of the rent, $1,000,’” said Ms. Cadagin, who previously was renting a two-bedroom apartment with a roommate in another Chicago area, where they both paid $900 a month.
When her roommate decided to move out, Ms. Cadagin said, she and her boyfriend concluded that living together would be more cost-effective for Ms. Cadagin than renting an apartment on her own. Ms. Cadagin said she could afford to live alone, but preferred to save money by living with someone else.
“I started looking at masters programs this year, so the financial situation is always on my mind,” he said.
When paying for utilities and groceries, the couple split the cost equally. However, keeping track of their shared finances hasn’t always been perfect, Ms. Cadagin said.
“He pays a lot of attention to his finances, and I can't do that sometimes,” she said.
Ms. Cadagin’s boyfriend, who asked not to be named for privacy reasons, said that although they hadn’t done a good job of setting financial expectations before they moved in together, they had learned how to do a better job of setting financial goals together and had become a stronger couple.
Overall, Ms Cadagin said living with her boyfriend has been a positive experience, and she feels there is still room for growth in their relationship.
“I think living together has definitely tested our relationship, but it's also made it stronger and I feel a lot more comfortable with him,” she added.
But not all relationships last after a new couple decides to move in together.
In June 2021, Eva Hersh, 26, and her boyfriend moved to Philadelphia together after dating for a year in New York City. In New York, they lived separately: Ms. Hersh rented a small studio apartment for $2,000 a month, and her boyfriend rented a small one-bedroom apartment for $1,900 a month — a “COVID deal” that would soon be increased to $3,200 a month.
When Ms. Hersh received a job offer in Philadelphia, she persuaded him to move there with her. They chose a two-bedroom apartment for $4,000 a month and split the rent equally.
“It was a lot cheaper than what we were paying in New York City,” Hersh said.
Two years later, Ms. Hersh and her boyfriend decided to end their relationship and move out of their apartment, which required them to terminate their lease.
Ms. Hersh, who now lives in Norwalk, Connecticut, said moving in with her boyfriend at the time seemed like the “perfect next thing.” They bought a car together and split the monthly payment equally; they also split the cost of utilities and groceries equally.
“It was a time when everybody was doing the same things, because most of them were not getting out of a relationship,” Ms Hersh said. She added that living with her boyfriend helped her learn a lot about herself and what kind of relationship she wanted in the future. Looking back, she said she wished she had waited longer to move in together.
“It was a good thing to try,” Ms. Hersh said. “It'll take me a long time to get into another relationship now.”