In Australia, it's common for students to share a house, and all go on the lease. This favors the landlord, because each tenant is liable for the entire rent.
But try it in a non-university town where non-students vastly outnumber the students? I don't think so. The landlord has everything to risk and nothing to gain by doing strange and unfamiliar things. If they have even heard of the practice, it's only for students, in student-dense areas, in housing long used in this way, with all the features (internal locks for each room, etc.). Why would they risk their nice house when they can just rent to somebody else?
Rents are expensive. It makes no financial sense to live by yourself.
Even in my home town - which has no substantial university - it's generally assumed that if you rent and do not have dependents, you almost certainly have housemates.
I wonder if this acceptance will keep once the economics changes?
It's like standing on one leg; if that leg crumbles, you will fall and land hard. But if you have two legs, one leg can crumble and the other gives you enough time for you to land gently. If you... magically had a third leg (and weren't standing with them in a triangle?), you might not even notice that one leg stopped working.