A recent article in The New York Times reported that the number and share of “excess bedrooms” in the U.S. reached a new high of 31.9 million in 2023. A new YouGov survey explored which demographics are more likely to have one or more spare bedrooms and what the rooms are being used for.
51% of Americans have in their homes at least one unoccupied bedroom — meaning it’s not currently being used by anyone in the household as a bedroom. 32% of Americans have one unoccupied bedroom, 16% have two, and 4% have three or more.
Americans who live in a single-family detached home are most likely to have unoccupied bedrooms — 67% have at least one unoccupied bedroom. Among people who live in apartments, 27% have at least one spare bedroom. Among Americans who live in another type of housing — including mobile homes and townhouses — 39% have at least one unoccupied bedroom.
34% of adults under 45 have at least one spare bedroom; 65% of older adults do. Among Americans 45 and older, 36% have one spare bedroom, 22% have two, and 7% have three or more.
People who own their homes are more likely than people who rent to have at least one spare bedroom (68% vs. 30%). Among people who are homeowners, 37% have one unoccupied bedroom, 24% have two, and 6% have three or more.
Households of two are more likely than single-person households or larger households to have spare rooms. 53% of one-person households have at least one unoccupied bedroom, while 64% of two-person households do. 41% of households with three or more people have at least one vacant bedroom.
What are Americans doing with their surplus bedrooms? Among Americans whose homes have at least one unoccupied bedroom, 31% use what they consider their first unoccupied bedroom as a guest room, 18% use it as storage, 18% use it as a home office, 8% use it for hobbies, and 7% use it as a bedroom for someone who currently lives elsewhere. Fewer than 5% use it for any other purpose. Among people who have a second unoccupied bedroom, the most common uses for it are guest room (29%), storage (18%), home office (10%), hobbies (8%), and playroom (7%).
Among Americans who don’t have any unoccupied bedrooms in their home, 29% say if they had one, they’d primarily use it as a guest room. 19% would use it as their home office, 8% would use it for their hobbies, 7% would use it for entertainment, 7% would use it for exercise, 6% would use it as a library, and 6% would use it as storage.
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See the results for this YouGov survey
— Carl Bialik and Taylor Orth contributed to this article
Methodology: This article includes results from an online survey conducted January 13 - 16, 2025 among 1,145 U.S. adult citizens. Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel to be representative of adult U.S. citizens. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, 2024 presidential vote, 2020 election turnout and presidential vote, baseline party identification, and current voter registration status. 2024 presidential vote, at time of weighting, was estimated to be 48% Harris and 50% Trump. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Baseline party identification is the respondent’s most recent answer given around November 8, 2024, and is weighted to the estimated distribution at that time (31% Democratic, 32% Republican). The margin of error for the overall sample is approximately 4%.
Image: Getty (PaulMaguire)
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