45% of members say messy flatmates still suck

13,000 people told us how they feel about living in a share house. And wow, despite a global pandemic, raging depression, crippling debt, lost jobs, broken relationships and cabin fever, messy flatmates are still the most annoying thing about living in a share house.

^{Source: NSAS 2019 survey results}

But despite the mess (we’ll get to that later), what else is keeping sharers up at night? Our 2020 National Share Accommodation Survey gave us all the goss.

Money

It’s no surprise that money is a driving force for people living in share houses. With 70% of our community under the age of 35 and young people being significantly disadvantaged financially compared to the rest of the nation, it makes sense that our audience have always got their mind on their money and their money on their mind.

51% of you share because you can’t afford to rent by yourself and another 20% of you rent to save money/split the bills. The main demographic on our site is 25-34, which may be a bit older than you might have thought. But with the cost of living only increasing and jobs getting scarce, many adult-freshies (18 and 19 young bloods we’re looking at you) are staying at home longer to save money and moving out only once they finish study, a year off, travelling or when they have a “big girl” job.

Activities

Every share house is different, and every house has its own needs – like streaming services. 2/5 of you share a streaming service and if that isn’t love in lockdown, we don’t know what is. Major winners go to the share houses who have each separate flatmate pay for a different streaming service and then share all the passwords – the sharing economy, we love to see it.

We’re a community of hobbyist, with over 10,000 of you taking up a new hobby during the pandemic. Baking, puzzles, arts and craft, complex recipes, home workouts et al.
1 in 11 of you adopted a pet this year – kudos! Also send pics please. The pandemic made some serious foodies as 2/5 of you spent more money on good food this year then you did pre-pandemic. This was either on fancy food from the supermarket to then cook at home or on takeaway.

The saddest moment of all is that half of you had money saved for an overseas trip this year and didn’t get to go.

What’s annoying:

^{Source: NSAS 2020 survey results}

If you’re a shit flatmate, pick up you game. Nothing is worse than a flatmate who is ignorant of their own terrible behaviour or who is told that their behaviour is annoying and still does nothing to fix it. So without further ado, let’s get to the biggest frustrations of living in a share house.

1. Messy flatmates at 45%
2. No privacy at 20%
3. No one taking responsibility for breakages or mess at 8%

What may be surprising for our Boomers but maybe not for our Gen Z and Millennial community, flatmates not paying their bills on time only added up to 3% of complaints, which is super low. We may be young but we be responsible y’all. Also shout out to our woke community, with only 2% complaining about their flatmate’s loud sex. Pretty sure your flatmates are just happy you’re getting some queen. It’s been a lonely year.

Don’t forget that 2/5 of our community said the best thing about living in a share house is the friendships that you make, doesn’t that make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside?

If you’re still after more data, you can check out how the pandemic affected those living in share houses.