Five signs you're actually ready to try co-living.

Co-living gets pitched as a personality fit — extroverts thrive, introverts should stay away. That framing misses what actually predicts whether someone's happy sharing a home.

The real predictors are smaller and more practical: do you clean up after yourself without being asked, can you say "that doesn't work for me" directly instead of stewing, and are you actually home enough to make a shared space worth having.

You don't need to want a roommate. You need to be someone a roommate wouldn't mind having.

If that sounds like you, the trade-off is usually worth it: lower rent, someone to split the good and bad days with, and a lot less time spent maintaining a whole apartment alone.