Chatting and laughing, drinks in hand, around 70 young women have gathered in a London pub with one aim: to find the ideal housemates. Most would like to live alone, but this is widely impossible in a city plagued by high rents, so they have signed up and paid for an event designed to fast-track a search process that can take months. "You have people in their 30s or 40s in house shares," explains Rachel Moore, co-founder of Girlies Guide, which organised the event. The situation is down to a "mismatch between supply and demand," says Antonio Mele, an Associate Professor of Economics and the London School of Economics. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES