For Caroline Li and Colin Wang, moving in together after eight months of dating was a matter of serendipity and urgency.
Last fall, Mr. Wang, 28, was finishing his final year of medical school at the University of California, Los Angeles, when he learned that the two-bedroom apartment he shared with a roommate was infested with mold. He had to move out immediately, but had trouble finding a new place to live.
“It was very difficult to find something that was close enough to campus and reasonably priced, and it was also in the middle of the school year,” said Wang, who had reached the three-year limit for UCLA student housing, which allowed him to pay $1,425 a month in rent 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., in the middle of their lease. Ms. Li and Mr. Wang realized they could solve both their problems by having Mr. Wang move in with Ms. Li and her roommate.
Ms. Li and her roommate each pay $1,750 a month, and Mr. Wang pays $1,500.
“I think the plan was always for Colin and I to move into this apartment after he finished his residency, not after he graduated from medical school,” Li said. “But I think the opportunity came sooner and we were able to keep this apartment and save money.”
Ms. Li and Mr. Wang are among many young couples who choose to move in together early in their relationship to save on housing and living expenses. Faced with a low supply of affordable housing, fierce competition between buyers and renters, slowly falling rental prices and rising mortgage rates, young people across the country are being pushed to find creative ways to find housing.
“Younger generations really need to look for ways to be frugal and reduce their housing costs, especially in big cities where rents are still very high and home prices are also very high,” said Hannah Jones, senior economic research analyst for Realtor.com.
According to a recent survey by Realtor.com, 80% of Gen Z respondents and 76% of Millennial respondents who moved in 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, which has a gym. Their apartment has a laundry room and modern appliances, and is close to the beach and major highways. They split the cost of monthly utility and grocery bills evenly with their other roommate.
“They actually gave me a small offer when I moved here because I didn’t have a salary until recently,” said Wang, who just started his residency program and has more than $200,000 in debt from medical school.
Ms. Li and Mr. Wang said that since moving in together, they have improved their communication and become better at prioritizing quality time together. But they are still working on merging their lifestyles.
“Even with roommates, you have to respect each other’s boundaries and so on,” Ms. Li said. “But when it’s your partner, I feel like the space you share is much more intimate.”
While sharing the cost of rent has its benefits, moving in together early in a relationship can lead to problems if a couple doesn’t already have a good understanding of each other’s communication styles and conflict resolution skills, said Nicolle Osequeda, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Chicago.
“If there are significant differences and there’s no foundation in how we talk about difficult things, whether it’s finances or anything else, it can exacerbate some of the stresses you’re already feeling,” said Osequeda, who specializes in working with young adults and young couples during life transitions.
After seven months of dating, Kaitlin Cadagin, 26, and her 28-year-old boyfriend moved into a one-bedroom apartment in a downtown Chicago high-rise.
Their apartment cost $2,400 a month in rent and offered many amenities, including a dog run, a conference room and laundry room. The couple decided to split the rent based on their income: Ms. Cadagin, an event planner, paid $1,000 a month, and her boyfriend, a licensed attorney, paid the remaining $1,400.
“I thought, ‘I can afford to pay $1,000 for my share of the rent,’” said Ms. Cadagin, who previously rented a two-bedroom apartment with a roommate in another Chicago neighborhood where they each paid $900 a month.
When her roommate decided to move out, Ms. Cadagin said, she and her boyfriend concluded that moving in together would be more cost-effective for Ms. Cadagin than renting an apartment alone. Ms. Cadagin said she could afford to live alone, but she preferred to save money by living with someone else.
“I started looking at master’s programs this year, so finances are always on my mind,” she said.
To pay the electricity and grocery bills, the couple split the cost equally. However, managing their joint finances wasn’t always perfect, Cadagin said.
“He’s very financially aware, which I’m not always,” she said.
Ms Cadagin’s boyfriend, who asked not to be named for privacy reasons, said that while they had not done a good job of setting their financial expectations before moving in together, they had learned to better set their financial goals together and had become a stronger couple.
Overall, Cadagin said, moving in with her boyfriend has been a positive experience and she feels their relationship still has room to grow.
“I think it’s definitely been a test of our relationship living together, but it’s also made it so much stronger, and I feel so comfortable with him,” she said.
But not all relationships survive after a new couple decides to move in together.
In June 2021, Eva Hersch, 26, and her boyfriend moved to Philadelphia together after a year of dating in New York. In New York, they lived separately: Ms. Hersch 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. Hersch got a job offer in Philadelphia, she persuaded him to move in with her. They settled on a two-bedroom apartment for $4,000 a month and split the rent evenly.
“It was really cheap compared to what we were each paying in New York,” Hersch said.
Two years later, Ms. Hersch and her boyfriend decided to end their relationship and move out of their apartment, forcing them to break their lease.
Ms. Hersch, who now lives in Norwalk, Conn., said moving in with her boyfriend felt like “the right decision” at the time. They bought a car together and split the monthly payments evenly; they also split utilities and groceries evenly.
“Back then, everyone did the same thing when they were in a relationship, since most people didn’t leave their boyfriends,” said Hersch, who added that moving in with her boyfriend taught her a lot about herself and what she wanted in a future relationship. Looking back, she said she wishes they had waited longer to move in together.
“I was right to try,” Hersch said. “It’s going to take me a long time to get into a new relationship now.”
