Homerun with Flatmate Finders
Australia's sharehouses changed and nobody noticed. 3,562 people in sharehouses across Australia told us how it actually looks. Most of them didn't expect to still be sharehousing today.
We know the stereotype of a typical sharehouse. Early twenties, a lease nobody has read, a messy fridge. You do it for a few years, then move on.
We partnered with Flatmate Finders to ask thousands of people who share a home what it's actually like in 2026.
Here's what they told us.
Respondents were recruited through Flatmate Finders and Homerun in March and April 2026, giving an analysis base of 3,562 unique respondents. This is a study of Australians actively forming or reforming a sharehouse, not a representative sample of all Australian sharehouses. Full method.
The finding
In this study of 3,562 Australians who live in sharehouses, 79.9% of 35 to 39 year olds said that at 20 they did not expect to be living in a sharehouse at their current age. Among 18 to 21 year olds the figure is 38.1%.
We asked everyone “At age 20, did you expect to be living in a sharehouse at the age you are now?” Among 18 to 21 year olds, more said yes than no. Among 35 to 39 year olds, 4 in 5 said no.
The second line tracks it. The older someone is, the less likely they are to think they'll ever own a home, and that share rises through every age band.
Respondents per age band. The Sharehouse Generation report, Homerun with Flatmate Finders, 2026 (n=3,562). Recruitment and method.
| Age band | Respondents | Did not expect to be sharing at this age | Expected to be sharing | Not sure | Do not think they will ever own a home |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 to 21 | 189 | 38.1% | 43.4% | 18.5% | 17.5% |
| 22 to 25 | 374 | 40.9% | 44.4% | 14.7% | 19.5% |
| 26 to 29 | 497 | 58.1% | 23.7% | 18.1% | 22.1% |
| 30 to 34 | 512 | 71.5% | 12.5% | 16.0% | 26.4% |
| 35 to 39 | 437 | 79.9% | 8.0% | 12.1% | 27.9% |
| 40 or over | 1,545 | 77.9% | 6.5% | 15.6% | 40.9% |
| All respondents | 3,562 | 68.5% | 15.9% | 15.6% | 31.2% |
“The current housing market will never have someone my age independently buying a home.”
Who we're talking about
16% of all respondents are under 25. The house most people picture, under 25s in a group of 3 or more in their first 2 years of sharing, is 8.3%. 35.4% have been sharing for 5 years or more and 16.9% already own a home and let rooms in it.
People share a home for all kinds of reasons. Three patterns come up often enough in the data to be worth stating on their own.
This is especially interesting because we didn't ask about this. This can occur when you need to find some place new to stay, or rent out the spare rooms to help with the mortgage.
“Recently separated. Finding my feet.”
17.6% are past 10 years. For this group a sharehouse isn't a step toward some other housing. It is the housing, and it's been that way long enough that the word temporary stops meaning anything.
“Collaborative living but separate lives.”
1 in 4 sharers over 40 is carrying a mortgage, and the spare room is part of how it gets paid. Buying a place turned out not to be the end of sharing one.
Owner hosts are heavy users of paid matching services, so read this as the shape of the market that uses them. Method.
The stereotypical sharehouse is now the minority. Draw it tighter to under 25s with 3 or more housemates in their first 2 years and it's only 8.3%.
The Sharehouse Generation report, Homerun with Flatmate Finders, 2026 (n=3,562). Under 25 is 15.8% unrounded; the middle definition, under 25 in a house of 3 or more, is 10.9%. Method.
How long they've been at it
The youngest sharers are mostly in their first year. Among respondents over 40, the biggest single group has been sharing for more than 10 years. See it for yourself.
Each age band on its own base: 189, 374, 497, 512, 437 and 1,545 respondents. The Sharehouse Generation report, Homerun with Flatmate Finders, 2026 (n=3,562). Method.
of respondents aged 40 or over have been sharing for 5 years or more.
| Age band | Under 1 year | 1 to 2 | 3 to 4 | 5 to 7 | 8 to 10 | 10 plus |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 to 21 | 68.8% | 20.1% | 9.0% | 1.1% | 0.0% | 1.1% |
| 22 to 25 | 46.0% | 23.5% | 21.9% | 7.2% | 0.8% | 0.5% |
| 26 to 29 | 35.4% | 20.3% | 23.5% | 10.5% | 7.8% | 2.4% |
| 30 to 34 | 23.0% | 20.5% | 20.9% | 14.6% | 9.8% | 11.1% |
| 35 to 39 | 21.7% | 15.1% | 18.3% | 15.1% | 9.4% | 20.4% |
| 40 or over | 19.6% | 15.7% | 16.6% | 11.5% | 6.5% | 30.0% |
| All respondents | 28.0% | 18.0% | 18.6% | 11.2% | 6.6% | 17.6% |
What this changes
When 31.2% of the people in a sharehouse don't expect to ever own a home, another 11% put it more than a decade away, and 74.6% say prices have stretched out how long they'll be sharing, share accommodation stops being the bit between the family home and a mortgage.
It starts looking like a third way of being housed, sitting alongside owning and renting alone. Those two come with rulebooks, records and rights. Sharing mostly comes with a group chat.
The Sharehouse Generation report, Homerun with Flatmate Finders, 2026 (n=3,562). Method.
How far away owning feels
We asked how far off owning a home felt. The two biggest groups are at the ends of the ladder: the ones who don't think they'll ever get there, and the ones who already own a home and are sharing anyway.
The page elsewhere reports the never-own figure as 31.2%, its value on the published base of 3,562; on the recomputed base of 3,554 it is 31.1%.
The household patterns above overlap and each is counted against its own base, so one household can be more than one of them and the figures don't add to 100%.
The churn
38.0% of respondents have moved into a sharehouse without fully understanding the lease or the house rules. In the past 12 months 70.9% had someone move in or out, a figure inflated by how this panel was recruited.
Each square is one of 100 respondents. The orange ones signed on to a house they hadn't finished reading about.
The Sharehouse Generation report, Homerun with Flatmate Finders, 2026 (n=3,562). Recruitment and method.
Your city
Brisbane has the highest share of respondents who never expect to own a home at 37.8%, up 21% on the national 31.2%. Sydney has the lowest at 27.1%. Adelaide has the oldest panel, with 54.4% aged 40 or over, on an indicative sample of 147.
Same country, five different arrangements. Choose a measure to see it across the map, then open a city.
Showing the share aged 40 or over in each capital, against a national 43.5%.
The map is drawn to city level because the survey is. There is no state-level cut behind these figures. Canberra (34), Darwin (16) and Hobart (14) are below the reporting floor and are not shown. Coastline simplified from Natural Earth. Homerun with Flatmate Finders, 2026. Method.
Sydney
The postponed capital
Sydney sharers are the most likely in the country to say prices extended their stay, and among the least likely to have given up on owning. The plan has not changed here. The date has.
n = 1,063 respondents
Arrows show how far the city sits from the national figure as a relative difference, not a percentage-point gap. Differences under 2% carry no arrow.
The rent maths
The last two figures are a Homerun calculation dividing the published rent by the published income, not a survey finding. Rent: Domain Rental Report, median house asking rent, March 2026 quarter. Income: ABS average full-time adult earnings by state, November 2025, less 2025 to 2026 income tax and the Medicare levy. The commonly used rental stress threshold is 30%.
All the figures in one place, for anyone who'd rather read a table than click a map. The highest value in the selected column is orange, the lowest is underlined.
| City | Respondents | Aged 40 or over | Did not expect to be sharing at their age | Prices extended their stay | Never expect to own | Had a move this year | House is a positive place |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sydney | 1,063 | 35.2% | 68.8% | 78.1% | 27.1% | 70.7% | 87.6% |
| Melbourne | 849 | 45.7% | 66.3% | 72.0% | 32.4% | 72.2% | 84.6% |
| Brisbane | 516 | 44.6% | 67.4% | 75.6% | 37.8% | 69.0% | 85.7% |
| Perth | 441 | 41.3% | 68.5% | 75.5% | 29.7% | 71.7% | 87.8% |
| Adelaide indicative | 147 | 54.4% | 70.1% | 72.8% | 29.3% | 71.4% | 83.7% |
| Outside the five capitals | 481 | 56.1% | 73.4% | 69.9% | 33.5% | 70.1% | 85.7% |
| Australia, all respondents | 3,562 | 43.5% | 68.5% | 74.6% | 31.2% | 70.9% | 86.1% |
Adelaide sits below the 150 respondent floor we set for a reportable cut, so treat it as indicative. "Outside the five capitals" is every respondent who gave a location other than Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Canberra, Darwin or Hobart. Those three smaller capitals (64 respondents together) are not reported. The Sharehouse Generation report, Homerun with Flatmate Finders, 2026 (n=3,562). Method.
And yet
86.1% of respondents describe their sharehouse as a positive place to live, either friendly but independent (66.6%) or social and close (19.5%). 3.7% describe it as actively tense.
Read the first half of this report and you'd assume sharehousing is something people put up with. Then we asked how they feel about their household.
The Sharehouse Generation report, Homerun with Flatmate Finders, 2026 (n=3,562). Method.
The Sharehouse Generation report, Homerun with Flatmate Finders, 2026 (n=3,562). Method.
The Sharehouse Generation report, Homerun with Flatmate Finders, 2026 (n=3,562). Method.
“It’s like living with your family, but you actually chose to live together.”Respondent, Melbourne, 26 to 29
Warmth by age
Among 22 to 25 year olds, 28.3% call their house social and close. Among respondents over 40 it's 14.8%. What replaces it isn't tension. It's the friendly but independent house, which climbs from 56.1% to 72.0% across the same bands. The share who call their house actively tense never goes above 4.2% in any age band.
Both things are true at once. The same study holds people who can't afford to live any other way, and households that describe themselves as chosen family. The housing market produced the first. The households produced the second, mostly on their own terms.
The fourth answer, mostly strangers co-living, runs from 15.3% at 18 to 21 down to 9.0% at 40 plus and is in the table. The Sharehouse Generation report, Homerun with Flatmate Finders, 2026 (n=3,562). Method.
| Age band | Friendly but independent | Social and close | Mostly strangers co-living | Actively tense |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 to 21 | 56.1% | 24.3% | 15.3% | 4.2% |
| 22 to 25 | 58.8% | 28.3% | 10.7% | 2.1% |
| 26 to 29 | 62.0% | 23.7% | 10.9% | 3.4% |
| 30 to 34 | 64.1% | 22.3% | 10.5% | 3.1% |
| 35 to 39 | 66.8% | 18.3% | 10.8% | 4.1% |
| 40 or over | 72.0% | 14.8% | 9.0% | 4.2% |
| All respondents | 66.6% | 19.5% | 10.2% | 3.7% |
“It saves so much money, like a big pay rise.”
Quotes are verbatim from free-text answers, with identifying details removed. Respondents chose separately and in writing whether they could be quoted. Method.
Why this is happening
This study describes who shares and what it's like. It can't explain why so many people ended up here. That sits in the wider housing market. Six numbers explain it. Keep scrolling.
The short version
43.5% are over the age of 40. Nearly 1 in 3 have been sharehousing for over 5 years. 31% expect to never own a home of their own.
Sharehousing is a housing class that has many unique characteristics, yet almost none of the support.
Keeping a household running is hard enough, without having to do it with strangers. The admin, the financial risk alongside people you hardly know, maintaining personal boundaries.
Yet 86.1% still call it a positive place to be.
Who published this
Founder, Homerun. Author of this report.
“After nearly a decade of living in sharehouses myself, this research was important to understand the current profile of sharehouses beyond my own personal experience. It's clear that sharehousing is much more of a permanent housing class than the general public perceive, and it comes with its own challenges that anyone who's lived in a sharehouse would understand.”
The research was designed and run by Homerun in partnership with Flatmate Finders. Fieldwork, analysis and the figures on this page are Homerun’s. The report was written by Scott McKeon. Media enquiries: scott@homerun.app.
In this study of 3,562 Australians, 43.5% of respondents were aged 40 or over, the largest single age band. 35.4% had lived in share accommodation for 5 years or more and 17.6% for more than ten. Respondents were recruited through Flatmate Finders and Homerun, so this measures Australians actively forming or reforming a sharehouse rather than the national population.
68.5% said that at 20 they did not expect to be living in a sharehouse at their current age. The share rises with age: 38.1% of 18 to 21 year olds, 71.5% of 30 to 34 year olds and 79.9% of 35 to 39 year olds, before easing to 77.9% among respondents aged 40 or over.
31.2% said they do not think they will ever own a home. That share rises with age, from 17.5% of 18 to 21 year olds to 40.9% of respondents aged 40 or over. A further 16.9% already own a home and let rooms in it.
86.1% described their household as a positive place to live, either friendly but independent (66.6%) or social and close (19.5%). 3.7% described it as actively tense.
One thing we can't give you yet: change over time. This is a single wave fielded in early 2026, so it describes a moment rather than a trend. The research continues, and that is what will make a comparison possible.
Method
3,562 unique respondents, fielded online in March and April 2026, recruited through Flatmate Finders and Homerun. This is not a representative sample of all Australian sharehouses, and we do not present it as one.
Everyone in it was in contact with a flatmate matching service, so it measures Australians actively forming or reforming a sharehouse.
Participation was incentivised with a prize draw: one cash prize and two Espresso Displays. 3,562 is the deduplicated analysis base, deduplicating raw responses by email address where one was given, otherwise by respondent ID.
Two consequences of the recruitment are worth stating plainly. First, older sharers are over-represented, because people over 40 are more likely to use a paid matching service while younger sharers more often find houses through their own networks. Second, household turnover is high by construction, because a person who has just used a matching service has by definition just had a change in their household.
Where a figure is affected by either of those, the page says so next to the figure rather than in a footnote.
Every percentage on this page is calculated on the full base of 3,562 unless stated otherwise. City cuts are calculated on that city’s respondents: Sydney 1,063, Melbourne 849, Brisbane 516, Perth 441, Adelaide 147, and 481 outside those five capitals. We set a floor of roughly 150 respondents for a reportable cut, so Adelaide is labelled indicative wherever it appears and Canberra, Darwin and Hobart are not reported. Multiple-select questions do not add to 100%. The household patterns in the third section overlap and each is counted on its own base, so they do not add to 100% either.
Where we compare a city to the national figure, the arrow shows the relative difference between the two shares, not a percentage-point gap.
Some things this survey can't tell you, because the questions drew too few responses to report: whether bills have caused arguments, how confident people are that bills are split fairly, whether anyone has had a bond dispute, and how people feel about the money friction they report. Those questions exist in the instrument and are not reported here. We would rather say nothing than report a figure with nothing behind it.
It also can't show change over time. This is a single wave, so it describes a moment rather than a trend. Continuing the research is what makes a comparison possible.
Question wording and the full tables are available on request from scott@homerun.app.
The research isn't over
This report exists because 3,562 people told us the truth about how they live. If you live in a sharehouse, please contribute to the data and share your experience.
About Homerun
Homerun is an Australian company building software for sharehouses: rent, bills, household admin and the everyday coordination that keeps a share home running. Almost every housing product in this country assumes a family or a single tenant. A household of unrelated adults runs on different mechanics, and very little has been built for that.
Research is how we understand the households we build for. The Sharehouse Generation is the first study we have published, and we intend to run it annually so the picture in this report can be compared rather than just cited.
About Flatmate Finders
Flatmate Finders is one of Australia’s largest share accommodation services. It partnered with Homerun on this study and opened the survey to customers who used the service over the past 12 months. The research was designed and analysed by Homerun.
Media enquiries and interview requests: scott@homerun.app. Interactive report: homerun.app.
The Sharehouse Generation Report 2026