Boarders: real estate's perfect strangers

Flickr photo by Nat W.

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Boarders -- once the stuff of Depression-era cartoons and 1950s TV sitcoms -- are back.

It's a sign of our economic times that more homeowners, looking to relieve financial stress, appear to be looking for someone to occupy a spare bedroom in exchange for monthly rent. And although having "roommates" is nothing new, recession-era realities are redefining the players and the living arrangements.

"Ever since last August or September, when the (stock market) crash really hit, people who had never thought of it before started looking at that extra bedroom as a source of income," said Jacqueline Grossman, home-sharing coordinator for the Interfaith Housing Center of the Northern Suburbs in Winnetka, Ill.

For 13 years, Grossman has been matching homeowners who have that spare room with people who need a place to live. Although she and others knowledgeable about the boarding phenomenon say that broad data is nonexistent, she says demand in her own area is way up and the demographics of the participants are changing.

Others who run similar home-sharing services agree, and it's particularly noticeable in areas where housing is costly.

"Probably 90 percent of the home providers we work with are looking for extra income, and in this area they can get at least $600 a month in rent," explained Laura Fanucchi, associate director of HIP Housing in San Mateo, Calif., a nonprofit that matched 308 homeowners and boarders in the fiscal year that ended June 30 -- a 20 percent increase over the prior year.

A bigger surge, she said, was the number of homeowners who contacted her group, offering to rent out a room -- that was up 29 percent over the year before.

"People are struggling with their mortgage costs, or perhaps they're in jeopardy of losing their homes," she said. "It's not uncommon that we see people who have $3,000- or even $5,000-a-month mortgages."

Grossman said she's hearing from would-be landlords who generally fall into four categories.

"Nowadays, we have people in their 50s who retired early, thinking they could live on their investments," she said. "Then the crash came, and they're living on half of what they thought they had."

Others are homeowners caught in the slow real estate market, she said.

"They've had their houses for sale, maybe for two years, and they have to continue paying the mortgage and taxes," she said. "They're looking for somebody who is extremely neat because the real estate agent is still going to come through to show the house."

A third group is frail, elderly people trying to continue to live independently, who want someone who can help with household chores such as grocery shopping, often for reduced rent, she said.

"Then you have the regular homeowners who are struggling to pay their utilities, their household costs and taxes," Grossman said. "They're just trying to hang on to the house."

The people looking to move in have changed, too, indicative of the reality of the job market, she said.

"They often are leaving their homes and husbands or wives and kids," in order to take a job in a new community, she said. "They're going home every other weekend, and they may be looking for an affordable place to live while they work on a contract. ...CONTINUED

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