The next big real-estate boom: Homes for solo living

The Quiet Revolution of Single-Person Households

Investment strategists often rush to model interest-rate changes and assess the impact of geopolitical events, inflation, or breakthroughs in artificial intelligence. These developments move quickly and demand immediate attention. However, not all factors influencing markets make headlines or are integrated into investment models. Some of the most transformative forces are slow-moving and quiet, shaping the investment landscape beneath our feet.

One such force is the global rise in single-person households. This shift isn’t just a lifestyle change; it’s a macroeconomic transformation that’s quietly reshaping consumption patterns and redefining the infrastructure we invest in. Real estate is one of the most immediately affected asset classes.

A Growing Trend Across the Globe

In 1940, only 7.7% of U.S. households were single-person. By 2023, that number had risen to nearly 30%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In cities like Washington, San Francisco, and New York, living alone is becoming the most common household type. The U.S. is not unique—over the past 35 years, the number of Canadians living alone has more than doubled. Across continents, one-person households are becoming increasingly common, with many cities where they now make up the majority.

The change is especially noticeable in parts of Europe. Countries like Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Germany report that more than 40% of households are composed of a single person. In large metropolitan areas like Tokyo, Stockholm, and Paris, solo households are nearing 50% of all living arrangements. Even in fast-urbanizing economies such as China, the number of solo households is rising rapidly, driven by rural-to-urban migration, delayed marriage, and low birthrates.

Yet much of the real-estate ecosystem—ranging from investment models to product design to development—remains rooted in an outdated consumer unit: the two-person-plus-children family household. It’s time to adjust the models, recognize new demands, and realize growing market opportunities.

The Misfit Suburban Model

The conventional housing market remains heavily skewed toward large, multibedroom homes in family-centric suburbs. After a short period of decline in the average size of new homes, the National Association of Home Builders recently reported an uptick, with the average size now at about 2,400 square feet. But for solo dwellers, these homes are often too large, too expensive, and not aligned with their needs.

Community factors, such as a good school district or nearby playground, no longer hold the same importance they once did. As adults of all ages choose to live alone or find themselves doing so, the demand is increasing for smaller, well-located, low-maintenance homes. Solo homeowners often face a premium: They must shoulder the full financial and labor costs of utilities, property taxes, and maintenance. This higher per-capita cost of living is compounded when appropriate housing is limited or entirely unavailable, resulting in what might be described as a hidden solo’s tax.

For developers and investors, the opportunity is to build more, but for one. The market is growing. Consider just a few of the vast tributaries feeding the increasing flow of solo real-estate consumers: never-married or partnered individuals, widows and widowers, midlife divorcees seeking independence, and young millennials and Generation Z priced out of city centers but uninterested in sharing a home.

The Rise of Amenity-Rich Rentals

Not all solo dwellers want to own. Many are drivers of a growing new rental class—one that demands high-quality experiences, services, and community-by-design. Delivering on property experience or being located in a high-density, amenity-rich neighborhood is the critical value-added infrastructure in a solo-living marketplace.

In metropolitan markets, amenity-rich rental buildings have evolved from luxury to necessity for solo tenants. These renters are not simply seeking a place to live; they want safety and access to outdoor facilities, social opportunities, and quality services. Fitness centers, co-working lounges, concierge services, and even in-building pet care were once considered perks. Now, they have become baseline expectations.

Why? Because when you live alone, your home becomes your main place for safety, productivity, and social connection. In a family household, responsibilities and roles are shared. For solo renters, the home is more than just a place to live; it serves as a hub for connection, convenience, and self-care.

From an investment lens, these amenity-rich models offer premium yields, particularly in high-density urban markets and a growing number of suburban areas that offer what might be described as urban-lite living—featuring walkability, entertainment, restaurants, and shopping.

Solo Aging as a Senior-Housing Tailwind

Perhaps nowhere is the rise of solo living more consequential than in senior housing. For decades, senior living communities were often imagined through the lens of couples, particularly in the active-adult housing segment: retirees aging together, downsizing from a family home, and arriving as a pair.

That model still persists in floor plans, pricing structures, and marketing images. But demographic reality is rapidly diverging. Today, the typical resident entering senior housing is not necessarily part of a couple, but rather a single older adult, most often a woman, often arriving alone.

And here’s the shift: The growing population of solo agers is likely to expand the market for senior housing. That is, if senior-housing investors and operators recognize and respond to solo aging consumers.

As more older adults live without spouses, partners, or nearby family, their options become limited. People who live alone are likely to be more aware than couples who share household responsibilities of what it takes to maintain a home and care for themselves. Aging-in-place, once considered the gold standard of independence, becomes physically, logistically, and emotionally more difficult when you live alone. The casual support that a spouse or adult child might provide, such as helping with a doctor’s appointment, noticing a health change, or calling a plumber, is absent. What used to be quietly managed within the household now must be outsourced, scheduled, and paid for.

In this context, senior housing becomes a logical choice, not the least best option. Not just for care, but for companionship. Not just for support, but for services.

Communities that offer built-in social interaction, 24/7 staff presence, transportation, dining, and access to care represent more than real estate. They are infrastructure for living safely and well while alone. The very characteristics that may have once made older solo adults hesitant to move, fear of giving up independence, stigma around assisted living, are likely to give way to a more pragmatic view.

Increasingly, solo agers will reframe senior living not as a last resort, but as the next logical, proactive, and aspirational step for someone who has had to make a lifetime of such decisions on their own.

Betting Big on Small

Unlike market volatility, ever-changing geopolitics, and mapping where technology will lead, the solo living trend is not speculative. It is observable, measurable, and global. And yet, it remains underrepresented in real-estate investment and development strategy.

Home developers are overbuilding the large and underbuilding the small. In rental housing, we are still treating amenities as luxury rather than essential infrastructure for a household of one. In senior housing, we are preparing for older people with needs rather than for a new younger single consumer with wants.

The solution is not to overcorrect, but to rebalance toward flexible, adaptable, and solo-conscious product design and development across real-estate asset classes. Invest and build for one, and you’ll serve many.