Low-cost housing: how can you escape the rent rat race?

Students in a flat run by Edinburgh Student Housing Co-op in 2020. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

The cost of renting a home has soared, prompting tenants to seek out cheaper options that could save some thousands of pounds a year during the cost of living crisis.

Some who have turned to alternatives such as housing cooperatives and homeshares are paying only a fraction of what they used to shell out.