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As rental vacancies decline and prices continue to rise, many adults have chosen to start living with a roommate.

According to the most recent Census Bureau Data from 2012, a total of 32 percent of adults nationwide were living with someone other than a spouse or partner. That number is up from 26 percent in 2000.

According to CNN Money, individuals tend to find roommates when rents increase and incomes don’t. Over the last year, rents rose an average of 6.5 percent, while wages have remained flat.

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Nine of the 10 most expensive real estate markets in the United States are located in California, according to a new report by Caldwell Banker.

Los Altos is at the top of the list, where the average price for a home is upwards of $1.9 million.

“The continued success of many tech companies throughout Silicon Valley has brought markets such as Los Altos into focus,” Joe Brown, managing broker of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Los Altos, told CNBC.

The only non-California market to make the list was Wellesley, Massachusetts – a suburb of Boston – at No. 10. The average home price there is $1.09 million.

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According to a new report by Mortgage News Daily, the October National Housing Survey – which is sponsored by Fannie Mae – has found that seller confidence is at an all-time high.

The survey revealed that 44 percent of respondents feel that now is a good time to sell a house.

“Consumers are growing more optimistic about the housing market in the face of broader improvement in economic sentiment,” said Doug Duncan, senior vice president and chief economist at Fannie Mae. “The narrowing gap between home buying and home selling sentiment may foreshadow increased housing inventory levels and a better balance of housing supply and demand. These results may help drive a healthier housing market in 2015.”

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The cost of housing in San Francisco took an unexpected downward turn from July to August of this year, Collateral Vision reported on Thursday. Home prices were down 2.1 percent over the month-long period, making it the first time since February 2012 that prices had dropped from one month to another.

As the mortgage news site points out, however, “that won’t make much of a dent with the already incredibly high prices in that city.”

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According to Richard Smith, CEO of Realogy, two major factors need to change if we want to see more first-time homebuyers enter the real estate market.

First, he says, the fees associated with FHA loans – the “traditional form of purchasing a home” for most first-time homebuyers – need to be drastically reduced. And second, underwriting methodologies need to be revised.

“The first-time buyer, traditionally, is a higher-risk buyer,” Smith said. “But with some, I think, basic considerate underwriting we can get the first-time homebuyer back.”

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