The next respondent is a 45-year-old woman studying for a master’s degree in Seoul, and her husband is an immigrant living in the USA. “I was too afraid to go back there because of ICE and immigration issues – it’s too risky and neither of us wants to be responsible for each other’s disappearance.”
A resident who sleeps with extended family
Across the United States, less than 5 percent of owner-occupied households span three or more generations. The number may seem modest, but according to data published in May by Realtor.com, demand for multi-generational homes is robust: listings with terms like “granny flat” and “guest house” received more views and were more costly (an average of 22 percent more per square foot) than standard homes.
Multigenerational households were well represented in the WIRED dataset, with respondents looking to save money or aid aging parents. The 45-year-old from Oakley, California, is “living with relatives to avoid homelessness.” A 23-year-old from Decatur, Georgia noted, “Any place I could afford right now would be an inferior option compared to the experience I’m having staying with my parents.”
A retired 65-year-old from Columbia, Missouri volunteered that her parents (now 91) moved into the house during the Covid pandemic. Despite the lack of privacy, she wrote: “It was good! We don’t have extra space, so we can’t accumulate things, but we have everything we need.” It’s not just the elderly who are moving in – a 38-year-old woman from Huntsville, Alabama, is preparing to sell her home and move back in with her parents.
Given that home sales trends remain dismal, it’s no wonder that multigenerational living is common. According to an April 2026 report from the National Association of Realtors, only about one in five buyers are first-time buyers – an all-time low.
A resident who loves his unusual situation
Some respondents came up with original solutions to the housing crisis. The 47-year-old did this by building an 8-by-24-foot apartment of cold-formed steel on a giant plot of land where a Victorian building had been demolished. “What would have been a space for heating and cooling is now a large, amazing backyard,” she wrote. The 68-year-old from Branchport, Novel York, lives in a one-bedroom log home with many pets: “I love living in the country, having animals and big gardens.”
Another respondent – a 55-year-old from Santa Cruz, California – described the house she bought in 1998 as a “ruined garbage dump.” But she wrote: “We have spent a lifetime improving the interior and exterior of our home, turning what was once the ugliest house on the block into the most beautiful” – a place surrounded by redwoods, a mile from the Pacific Ocean.
Then there is the sea crowd. One 77-year-old who loves living off the grid has spent most of the last year on a sailboat. In Sausalito, California, an 84-year-old woman who “fell in love with life on a houseboat” noted that while life aboard is not effortless for older people, she hoped to stay there as long as she could. “I have everything I need and want here,” she wrote.