Business
Houses without lounges are a reality for renters
Kevin PeacheyCost of living correspondent
Ella MurrayHomes without lounges are becoming a reality for renters on tight budgets faced with a lack of available lets.
Nearly a third of homes advertised on flat-sharing website SpareRoom in the first half of the year had no living room.
Ella Murray, aged 22, who shares with three other people in London, said: “At this stage in my life I’m not willing to sacrifice money for more space.”
Landlords say turning a lounge into a bedroom helps them cover their higher mortgages and other extra costs, while meeting demand from tenants.
But a lack of communal space means many renters are living and working in one bedroom putting them at risk of social isolation.
Some also point out the “false economy” of being forced to go out to socialise which can cost more than a night in with friends.
Cost-of-living pressures
Students living away from home might expect to rent in a property where the front room has been converted into a bedroom.
But these latest figures suggest this is a reality for young professionals renting in their 20s and 30s.
Analysis by SpareRoom, shared with the BBC, shows:
- Some 30% of adverts for a room posted on the platform in the first half of the year were for places without a living room
- That proportion was higher in London, at 41%
- Birmingham saw an increase from 16% to 22% of adverts with no living room in the five years from 2020
The data covers flat or house shares only, and does not include any studio, or one-bedroom listings.
Official figures show average UK monthly private rents increased by 5.5%, to £1,354, in the year to September.
As costs rise, there are 10 prospective tenants on average chasing every available rental property, according to the latest Rightmove data.
A landlord turning a lounge into a bedroom provides an extra place for a tenant. It could also mean lower rent payments for each tenant but potentially more rent overall for landlords covering higher mortgage repayments seen in recent years.
Ella and her three housemates split the rent of £3,000 a month dependant on the size of their bedrooms, but their home does not have a living room.
“We have a decent-sized kitchen with a dining table which is where we hang out instead. We would definitely socialise more if we had a living room,” she said.
She said the rent was cheaper as a result, and – living in London – it was the norm among her friends in other rental properties in the city.
She works in musical theatre, and said she would be more inclined to rent somewhere with a living room were her wage to increase and were she to move in with a partner.
Hannah CarneyHannah Carney, 26, also shares a property without a lounge and says none of the places she had rented since she was 18 had a living room.
She says she misses having a “chill place that is social” and it means she and her flatmates probably spend more on going out for dinner and drinks.
“I’d love to say that all properties should have a communal area. I wish that was the norm, but I know it’s not realistic,” she said.
The best she and her flatmate could do, she says, is to have movie nights in a box room that they also use to hang their washing.
Matt Hutchinson, director of SpareRoom said: “We’ve had so many messages from people who met their best friends and partners in flatshares, who’ve raised families or started businesses together.
“Those kinds of stories will become rarer if communal, sociable spaces within homes are not protected. Sadly, loneliness is alarmingly common.
“With rents as unaffordable as they are now, it’s understandable people are looking for ways to cut the cost of living.”
Chris Norris, chief policy officer at the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA) said the “root of the challenges” was too few rental homes to meet demand.
The NRLA said some landlords, facing a difficult outlook, were moving into offering multi-occupancy homes so their businesses remained viable enough to carry on.
“With rising costs and the expectation of smaller margins to contend with, some landlords will certainly be looking at how to use their investments most efficiently and meet demand effectively whilst delivering high-quality private rented homes,” Mr Norris said.
At the more extreme end of the scale, the BBC has previously uncovered illegal house-sharing in multi-occupancy homes.
New Delhi: Home services provider Urban Company on Saturday announced a net loss of Rs 59.3 crore in Q2FY26, a significant drop from a profit of Rs 6.9 crore in the previous quarter. The loss was attributed to heavy upfront investments in its new daily-housekeeping vertical, Insta Help, which overshadowed strong revenue growth in its core services and products businesses, according to regulatory filings by the Gurugram-based firm.
The company posted a loss of Rs 1.82 crore in the July-September quarter last year, the company said. While revenue from operations increased 37 per cent year-on-year to Rs 380 crore, the total expenses rose to Rs 462 crore from Rs 384 crore in Q1. This resulted in adjusted EBITDA turning negative at Rs 35 crore, compared with a profit of Rs 21 crore in Q1.
Insta Help reported an EBITDA loss of Rs 44 crore, and excluding this segment, Urban Company achieved an adjusted EBITDA profit of Rs 10 crore, accounting for 0.9 per cent of net transaction value (NTV), the company noted.
“Early indicators for Insta Help are encouraging, with strong consumer adoption and repeat usage,” the company said in its shareholder letter. It added that it believed the segment holds “significant long-term opportunity and believes these investments are important to sustaining market leadership.”
The company expects its adjusted EBITDA losses to continue in the near term due to further investments in the Insta Help vertical, despite its core India and international businesses remaining profitable and cash-generating.
The company’s smart home products vertical, Native, which sells water purifiers and electronic door locks, recorded revenue of Rs 75 crore, up 179 per cent YoY, while losses narrowed to 9 per cent of NTV from 30 per cent in the previous year.
The home services provider closed the quarter with Rs 2,136 crore in cash and equivalents, up from Rs 1,664 crore in the previous quarter, mainly due to proceeds from its recent IPO.
New Delhi: Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has opened up about the company’s recent layoffs, which affected around 14,000 employees. Contrary to popular belief, he said the decision wasn’t about cutting costs or the rise of artificial intelligence. Instead, Jassy pointed to a deeper reason behind the move — company culture. “The announcement that we made a few days ago was not really financially driven, and it’s not even really AI-driven, not right now at least,” he said, as quoted by Business Insider. “It really — it’s culture.”
A Cultural Reset at Amazon
Andy Jassy’s comments reflect Amazon’s ongoing push to reshape its internal culture. As reported by Business Insider, he has been focused on raising performance standards, tightening discipline, and cutting down on unnecessary bureaucracy to make the company more efficient and agile.
During the earnings call, Jassy acknowledged that Amazon’s rapid expansion over the years had added “a lot more layers,” which ended up slowing down how decisions are made. He emphasised that the company now needs to “operate leaner and move faster,” particularly as artificial intelligence continues to reshape industries worldwide.
“Sometimes, without realizing it, you can weaken the ownership of the people that you have who are doing the actual work,” Jassy said. “And it can lead to slowing you down.” In a blog post on October 28, Amazon’s senior vice president of people experience and technology, Beth Galetti, also confirmed that the company is “making organizational changes across Amazon that will impact some of our teammates.”
“While this will include reducing in some areas and hiring in others, it will mean an overall reduction in our corporate workforce of approximately 14,000 roles,” she said. This marks Amazon’s largest round of layoffs since 2022, when about 27,000 employees were let go. Interestingly, Jassy’s recent comments contrast with what other Amazon executives have previously said about the reasons behind the job cuts.
The decision also reflects a broader trend across Big Tech. Giants like Google and Microsoft are undergoing what many call the “Great Flattening” — cutting down layers of management to speed up decision-making and eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy.
Business
Berkshire Hathaway Q3 results: Profit jumps 17% to $30.8 bn as Buffett readies exit; Greg Abel set to take charge amid $381 bn cash pile – The Times of India
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway reported a 17% rise in quarterly profit, boosted by a rebound in its insurance operations and gains from investments, even as the legendary investor prepares to hand over the reins to Vice Chair Greg Abel in January, AP reported.The company said on Saturday that it earned $30.8 billion, or $21,413 per Class A share, for the quarter ended September, up from $26.25 billion, or $18,272 per share, in the year-ago period. Operating profit — Buffett’s preferred measure to assess the firm’s performance — surged to $13.49 billion, or $9,376.15 per Class A share, compared with $10.09 billion a year earlier.Analysts surveyed by FactSet had projected operating earnings of $8,573.50 per share. Berkshire said the strong performance was driven by its insurance business, which benefited from fewer catastrophic losses than last year, when Hurricane Helene battered the US southeast. Insurance underwriting profit rose $1.6 billion to $2.37 billion.The conglomerate also booked $17.3 billion in investment gains during the quarter, while foreign currency debt holdings added $331 million in profit, reversing a $1.1 billion loss a year earlier.However, earnings at Berkshire’s utilities division slipped nearly 9% to $1.49 billion.Despite a $9.7 billion investment in OxyChem last month — Berkshire’s biggest deal in years — the group’s cash reserves remained substantial at $381.7 billion as of end-September.Buffett, 95, will step down as CEO in January but continue as chairman. The company’s Class A shares closed Friday at $715,740, well below their record of $812,855 reached in May before Buffett’s retirement announcement.
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