The full nest: why young adults living at home is the death of downsizing

Have you ever heard of the phrase ‘full nesters’? It was used in an article commissioned by The Guardian earlier this year. Journalist Gabby Hinsliff explained how the traditional cycle of buying a family home, raising children and downsizing somewhere smaller once the children had left is being challenged.

Where once we referred to empty nesters – parents rattling round in properties too big for their needs – Hinsliff highlighted how we’re now a nation of full nesters, with grown-up children who can’t (or won’t) leave the family home.

The statistics document a fascinating shift in family dynamics. The last UK Census in 2021, carried out by the Office of National Statistics, found the total number of adult children living with their parents was 4.9 million. This represented a 14.7% increase - up from 4.2 million in 2011.

More recently, a 2025 report by the Institute of Fiscal Studies found the proportion of UK adults in their 20s and 30s co-residing with their parents had risen by more than a third over the last two decades. To put that into perspective, almost half a million more young adults stayed in the family home between 2006 and 2024. Interestingly, the South East, including Bognor Regis, Chichester and the entire county of Sussex, saw some of the biggest increases in full nests.

Then there are the parents who are lulled into a false sense of empty nest security only to discover they’re part of the boomerang phenomenon – when adult children leave but return again at a later date. Boomerang children are becoming more common, as the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Essex found. Its analysis revealed 15% of 21- to 35-year-olds returned back to the family home at least once after leaving between 2009 and 2020.

This compelling picture is something White & Brooks has noted as estate agents. Across Chichester, Bognor Regis, Emsworth, Havant, the ‘Six Villages’, Selsey and The Witterings, we are being asked to help find better planned or bigger – not smaller homes – for families with full nests.

Living with adult children brings a different set of requirements and challenges. The issue of privacy often comes to the fore. Suddenly, that open plan space where toddlers, teens and parents all hung out together isn’t as fun. The thought of en-suite bathrooms, annexes, multiple reception rooms and scope to convert or extend to provide as much space as possible sounds ultra appealing.

Practicalities change too. Families may have two, three or even four cars to accommodate. Young adults will have their own commuting needs and may require a location close to public transport or a certain motorway. And what happens where everyone under one roof keeps very different hours? How everyone rubs along together will be in the spotlight.

As an estate agent, White & Brooks feels the days of downsizing – for some families – are numbered. The average age of a first-time buyer in the Chichester and Bognor Regis environs is 34. The Office for National Statistics says girls turning 18 in 2025 are likely to have an average of one child per woman by the age of 35 – up from 31 years old noted in the previous generation - while people are getting married later in life, somewhere between 33 and 35 years old.

Milestones like these used to be the catalyst for moving out of the family home but they’re now occurring much later in life – through choice, environmental factors, health reasons and financial pressures. As such, the full nest is here to stay.

If you are bursting at the seams and would like to find more equilibrium in a family home where you’re co-living with young adults, please get in touch with White & Brooks. We can sell your current home and help you find a more suitable nest in Chichester, Bognor Regis and the wider West Sussex locale.