A roommate is a person who shares a living facility such as an apartment or dormitory. Similar terms include suitemate, housemate, flatmate ("flat": the usual term in British English for an apartment - in New Zealand, "flatmate" is solely used, regardless of whether the dwelling is an apartment or a detached house), or sharemate (shared living spaces are often called sharehomes in Australia and other Commonwealth countries). A sharehome is a model of household in which a group of usually unrelated people reside together. The term generally applies to people living together in rental properties rather than in properties in which any resident is an owner occupier. In the UK, the term "roommate" means a person living in the same bedroom, whereas in the United States and Canada, "roommate" and "housemate" are used interchangeably regardless whether a bedroom is shared, although it is common in US universities that having a roommate implies sharing a room together. This article uses the term "roommate" in the US sense of a person one shares a residence with who is not a relative or significant other. The informal term for roommate is roomie, which is commonly used by university students.