Homebuyers with kids might be advised not to land on a home too small if they intend to stay there, as a new report explains that their offspring may very likely be with them there past college years.
A record 25.2 million adults under 35 lived with their parents in 2025, surpassing even the pandemic peak, as housing costs continue to price young adults out of independent living, according to a new report from Realtor.com®. One in three adults under 35 now shares a roof with a parent, a rate that has held near its 2020 record high with little sign of easing.
The numbers reflect the accumulated weight of more than a decade of housing underproduction, which has kept persistent upward pressure on housing costs, Realtor.com said. Had early-2000s co-residence patterns held, 4.86 million fewer young adults would be living with their parents today.
Instead, a national median home listing price of $430,000, 34.4% above 2019 levels, and a median asking rent of $1,673, 17.9% above 2019 levels, have made independent living financially out of reach for millions. The U.S. currently faces a deficit of approximately 4 million homes, a gap that has widened since the construction slowdown following the 2008 financial crisis.
Other aspects of the housing market also contribute. One report notes that housing starts have bottomed out to six-year lows. Another tells of construction struggling to meet demand as the housing supply gap widens.
A recent report from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies adds that household growth, a key driver of housing demand, slowed for the third consecutive year in 2025, falling from an average of 2.0 million households in 2021 to just 1.1 million in 2025—still high by historic standards. The slowdown reflects reduced household formation among young adults amid weak labor markets, heavy student debt and intensifying economic uncertainty.
And it doesn’t help that according to HUD Secretary Scott Turner, the regulatory environment is hindering housing.
Back to adults living with their parents, they “are largely employed, and many hold college degrees. What’s holding them back isn’t a lack of qualifications, but rather, at least in part, a lack of housing they can actually afford,” said Hannah Jones, senior economist at Realtor.com, in a statement. “This is a supply story, not an employment story.”
Effects on housing market
“Twenty-five million adults living with their parents represents a generation of latent demand the market hasn’t absorbed,” said Jones. “Every adult still in a childhood bedroom is a household not formed, a lease unsigned, a starter home unpurchased. The typical first-time buyer is now 40. That’s not a coincidence; it’s the math of a market that hasn’t built enough.”
The delay carries a real financial cost. As the report’s research has shown, each year spent at home rather than building equity is a year of wealth accumulation deferred. Until affordability improves and entry-level supply expands, that latent demand will continue to build.
The 33.0% co-residence rate among adults under 35 in 2025 sits just below the 2020 all-time high of 33.6%, and the absolute count of 25.2 million has now surpassed it. The share has held at or near its pandemic peak since 2022. The pattern across the last two decades follows the same arc: crisis, spike, partial retreat and a new, higher floor.
The first major increase came during the Great Recession, when co-residence rates rose sharply and did not recover when the economy did. The second came with COVID, as the overall share jumped to 33.6% in 2020. A brief retreat in 2022 reflected a narrow cohort that caught historically low mortgage rates before the window closed. Everyone behind them faced elevated rates, limited inventory and elevated rents, and by 2025 the count had climbed to a new record.
The adults living with their parents in 2025 do not fit the stereotype of simply being unemployed and unable to pay rent or a mortgage. Among those aged 25 to 34, approximately 70% are employed. In 2000, roughly one in nine adults in their late 20s were both employed and living at home; by 2025, that ratio had grown to nearly one in seven, even as employment rates within the group held steady. The divergence points directly at housing costs, not labor market conditions.
Roughly nine in 10 adults aged 25 to 34 living with parents have never been married, up from 79% in 2000, and about one in three aged 25 to 29 holds a four-year degree, up from fewer than one in four at the start of the century. The growth in co-residence is a story of delayed household formation.
Men make up the majority of at-home adults at every age, though the gap is narrowing at younger ages. Among 18- to 24-year-olds, the split is now nearly even at 51.5% male, compared to 55/45 in 2000.
The data splits differently depending on cohort. Among adults aged 25 to 29, co-residence has seen a modest retreat from recent highs, driven by adults now 28 to 29 who were in their early 20s during the 2020 to 2021 low-rate window and found footing before conditions tightened. The 25- to 26-year-olds behind them hit peak renting age just as rates and prices surged in 2022 to 2023, and show no such improvement.
The 30 to 34 group tells the other half of the same story. At 12.7% co-residence in 2025, nearly double the 7.1% recorded in 2000, this group largely consists of adults who were 25 to 29 during the pandemic and never fully launched. The improvement at 25 to 29 and the rise at 30 to 34 are the same cohort at different stages of the same delayed exit.
The report notes that demand for homes from these cohabitating young people will continue to “accumulate” until there is enough entry-level housing available.
