Real estate is so expensive out West that married couples are taking roomates

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Married couples are making room for roommates. Sometimes, multiple roommates. Just ask Kelsey Riley Dixon. The 29-year-old business owner and her husband, a semi-pro kayaker, share a four-bedroom home with three male roommates “to reduce costs in the very expensive city of Seattle,” she says. “It allows us to have a home in a really expensive city with a deck, a backyard, a basement — and we are able to pay half the rate that we would living on our own.”

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The reason: Housing costs a ton. In Honolulu and Orange Country, Calif., the share of married couples with roommates is between four and five times the national rate. San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and Seattle also have sky high rates of married couples with roomies. Those same cities all have well above average rental and housing costs (Trulia notes that housing costs in all these markets have risen more than 30% since 2009), with residents of uber-pricey San Francisco requiring more than $123,000 in income to live comfortably, one study showed.

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