Taking in a roommate has historically helped renters afford to live in big cities and downtown areas, but that’s no longer enough in North Texas, according to roommate site SpareRoom.
In the website’s analysis of 16 million area searches, SpareRoom found more renters with roommates moved away from pricier cities to regional suburbs in 2025 than the year before.
“Once concentrated in dense urban neighborhoods, shared living is increasingly becoming a suburban reality as renters of all ages seek lower-cost alternatives to living alone,” wrote Matt Hutchinson, SpareRoom’s communication director, on the website.
In April, the average rent for a room was $893 in Dallas, the highest among Texas cities. Since room rents peaked at the end of 2023, rents have fallen, according to SpareRoom’s rental index data tracking roommate rents in shared households.
Yet room rents remain higher than before the pandemic, leading roommate searches to spread into suburban communities like Rockwall, where such searches grew over 145% in 2025, according to the website’s data.
In an analysis of its roommate search data from 2015 to 2025, SpareRoom found that the increase in rental costs have meant fewer young people can afford to leave home, while older people are increasingly priced out of owning homes or renting alone.
People 65 and over emerged as the fastest growing group in the roommate market even as they account for less than 5% of all U.S. roommates. Their percentage has more than tripled since 2015. Roommates aged 55 to 64 recorded the second highest increase.
“We’re inching further away from the traditional image of the roommate as a recent graduate or young professional,“ Hutchinson wrote.
This reporting is part of the Future of North Texas, a community-funded journalism initiative supported by the Commit Partnership, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, the Dallas Mavericks, the Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Lisa and Charles Siegel, the McCune-Losinger Family Fund, The Meadows Foundation, the Perot Foundation, the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas and the University of Texas at Dallas. The News retains full editorial control of this coverage.