When I was younger, I thought The Golden Girls was a show about four old women living together in Miami.
Somewhere along the way, Blanche, Dorothy, Rose and Sophia stopped looking quite so old, which is a separate and frankly alarming conversation. But something else changed, too. Their living arrangement stopped looking quirky. It started looking … kind of fantastic.
I love my husband and hope we’re together for the rest of our days. But one of my best friends and I have joked that if life ever left us both on our own someday, we could absolutely see ourselves sharing a house with our assorted critters. The older I get, the less I’m convinced we’re joking.
Apparently, we’re not the only ones.
AARP recently brought together a group of women to explore whether they could actually live a Golden Girls lifestyle as they age. According to AARP research, 57 percent of women 50 and older said they would consider living with a friend as they age. Men reported similar openness to the idea.
Maybe those four women in Miami were onto something.
When did independence come to mean living alone?
We’ve spent generations with a fairly specific picture of adult life: Find a partner, build a household, perhaps raise children, become empty-nesters and grow old together.
It’s a lovely plan. Life, however, has never been particularly interested in following our plans.
People divorce. Partners die. Children grow up. Financial circumstances change. Sometimes the house that was perfect for a family becomes awfully big for one person, while leaving means walking away from a community someone still loves.
Maybe independence isn’t proving that you don’t need anybody. Maybe it’s having the freedom to decide what kind of life works for you, including choosing to share it, and perhaps the mortgage, utility bills and responsibility for taking out the trash, with other people.
That sounds less like giving up independence and more like exercising it.
Why do we treat friendship like plan B?
We readily accept romantic relationships, parenthood and multigenerational families as reasons to build a household. But friendship? We still tend to see building a household around friends as unconventional or what happens when Plan A doesn’t work out. Why?
Women may recognize this particularly well because so many of us already have versions of the Golden Girls kitchen in our lives: the kitchen island, the group text, the sisters on FaceTime, the friends who know from the way you say “hello” that something is wrong.
Men have their circles, too. This isn’t exclusively a female idea. What’s changing is that we’re starting to take those relationships seriously when we talk about how people actually want to live.
Housing costs, companionship and the desire to remain in a familiar community are all reasons people are considering home sharing. A growing network of home-sharing programs is helping older adults find compatible housemates.
This isn’t four women, a lanai and an emergency cheesecake anymore. It’s housing.
What should agents take from this?
Households are changing, and our assumptions need to change with them. If three women in their 60s want to buy together or two longtime male friends decide to share a home, they don’t need us deciding whether that’s unusual.
Ask how they want to live
Start with a better question: How do you want to live? The answer may look very different from a traditional wish list.
Maybe everyone needs a private bedroom and bathroom because friendship has limits. Maybe a first-floor suite, gathering space, separate entrances or accessibility matters most. In my hypothetical future household, we’ll also need a fenced yard capable of containing an unreasonable number of animals and birdhouses.
Help them think beyond the house
Shared ownership can raise questions about financing, title, estate planning, expenses, privacy, caregiving expectations and what happens if someone wants or needs to leave.
Agents don’t need to provide every answer. We should recognize the questions and help clients surround themselves with the right professionals.
Know the rules where you work
Local regulations can complicate shared housing. Colorado changed its law in 2024 to remove certain local limits on the number of unrelated people who can live together, but rules vary.
Don’t decide what others’ ‘home’ should look like
Our job shouldn’t be to decide whether someone’s version of home looks normal. It should be to help them figure out whether it can work.
Maybe plan B isn’t 2nd best
I think that’s what I appreciate differently about The Golden Girls now. Those women weren’t waiting for their “real” lives to resume or for something better to come along. They were a household.
They irritated each other, supported each other, laughed, fought, celebrated, grieved and kept showing up. In other words, they did what families do.
Home doesn’t become less meaningful because the people around the kitchen table aren’t the people you imagined sitting there when you first pictured your future.
Sometimes life changes the seating chart. That doesn’t make the people who end up at the table any less your people.
So, if someday my version of aging in place involves my best friend, our critters, separate bathrooms and somebody willing to split the cost of the cheesecake, I’m beginning to think that’s not much of a plan B at all. Honestly, it sounds pretty golden.
