Would This Help Our RE Market?

The Denver Post last Tuesday ran a story with a new idea on how to solve our housing crunch. According to John Burns Real Estate Consulting, owner occupied homes contain 442k spare unused bedrooms in metro Denver and 142k of those bedrooms are in homes owned by senior citizens. Thus, companies like Providence Home Share and Sunshine Homeshare of CO are helping willing seniors rent out a spare room or 2 to younger people at a rent rate that is typically about half of a 1 bedroom apartment.

The senior homeowner receives some extra income by way of rent and the renter receives cheaper rent, hopefully allowing them to pay off debts like student loans and/or save money to be able to buy a home.

This is an interesting idea; but what we really need is for seniors to sell their big homes to a younger family. But, where do the seniors move is the next question.