Research finds that renting ages you faster than smoking, obesity

No, renters, you are not imagining those grey hairs springing up on your head – your living situation is actually making you older, faster.

A landmark study out of the University of Adelaide and University of Essex has found that living in a private rental property accelerates the biological aging process by more than two weeks every year.

The research found renting had worse effects on biological age than being unemployed (adding 1.4 weeks per year), obesity (adding 1 week per year), or being a former smoker (adding about 1.1 weeks).

University of Adelaide Professor of Housing Research Emma Baker said private renting added “about two-and-a-half weeks of aging” per year to a person’s biological clock, compared to those who own their homes.

“In fact, private rental is the really interesting thing here, because social renters, for some reason, don’t seem to have that effect,” Professor Baker told the ABC News Daily podcast.

She said the security of social renting – aka public housing – and homeownership has compared to people living with an end-of-lease date on their calendars.

“When you look at big studies of the Australian population, you see that the average rental lease is between six and 12 months,” she said.

“So even if you have your lease extended, you still are living in that slight state of kind of unknowingness, really not quite secure if your lease is actually going to be extended or not.”

“We think that that is one of the things that’s contributing to loss of years, effectively.”