News

Feb 11, 2024

How to Upgrade Your Home for Multigenerational Living

Broomfield, Colorado Homeowner: Marina Lopez Del Carril, 58 New arrival: Housemate Adam Saucedo, 30 Home growth: Finding a basement tenant so Marina, a retired bilingual educator, would be comfortable

Broomfield, Colorado

Homeowner: Marina Lopez Del Carril, 58

New arrival: Housemate Adam Saucedo, 30

Home growth: Finding a basement tenant so Marina, a retired bilingual educator, would be comfortable and financially secure in her 2,800-square-foot, four-bedroom home

Approximate cost: Nominal, as the unit was tenant-ready

Why: “My three adult children have homes of their own, and I didn’t want to live alone,” says Marina Lopez Del Carril. Downsizing didn’t appeal to her in the current seller’s market. “I would have had to find something small and overpriced or moved somewhere much less desirable.” Social connection mattered too. “I thought, What about sharing my space?”

How: Online housemate-matching services like Silvernest, Furnished Finder and Travel Nurse Housing cater to boomers and make it easy to find people to share your home in the short term, which can also bring in extra income. Marina listed her finished basement apartment(with kitchenette, bath and separate entrance) on Silvernest for $1,300 a month and had three interested parties the next morning, so she started interviewing.

Whoa: Safety was the top concern. Most share sites have integrated background check and identity verification tools, but Marina’s friends also advised her to install a kick-proof security door between her kitchen and the basement (though she didn’t) and to be clear on her house rules, the highlights of which were “no smoking, no pets, no guns,” she says.

Wow: Marina expected to live with “a woman my age or older, I figured” — but she “really clicked” with Adam Saucedo, a young guy who was relocating to town to be a school administrator. What started as a month-to-month formal rental in July of last year has bloomed into unexpected friendship and fun. The housemates sometimes cook or watch TV together, and Marina often hangs out with Adam and his friends. “Standing at my kitchen counter over jigsaw puzzle pieces at 11 p.m. with five young men, I just have to chuckle,” she says.

Atlanta, Georgia

Homeowners: Eva Mauldin, 34, and Chuck Mauldin, 38

New arrival: Eva’s mom, Cary Childre, 67

Home growth: Building a stand-alone, 450-square-foot ADU behind Eva and Chuck’s 1,500-square-foot, three-bedroom, two-bath house

Approximate cost: $200,000

Why: Cary Childre, who’s divorced, had been thinking her 3,000-square-foot house in the Atlanta suburbs was way too big for her and her four tiny dogs. So in 2022, when her daughter became pregnant with her first child, “the conversation about building an ADU got real,” she says. The sale of Cary’s home helped fund the new building project. During her career as a nurse, Childre saw too many older patients who needed help but whose families were too far away to provide it. “If I made the transition early to age in place, I knew I wouldn’t fall into the trap of not having support when the time came,” she says.

How: Eva and Chuck Mauldin considered adding a permanent attachment to their home but then heard about a local architecture firm that specializes in freestanding accessory units. “Ripping out walls and tacking on a mother-in-law suite just got too complex and expensive,” Eva says. “It was simpler to build from scratch with experts who understand how compact spaces work.” The one-bedroom ADU has high ceilings, a bright modern kitchen, a bathroom with easy-pull handles and clear entryways, and a studio for Cary’s art projects. Eva and Chuck, who work in the hospitality industry, now pay Cary a salary to care for their daughter full-time. “Childcare is hugely undervalued in our society, and Mom deserves compensation for what she’s doing,” Eva says.

Whoa: Eva and Chuck live in a 98-year-old American bungalow in Atlanta’s Grant Park historic district. They jumped through extra hoops for permitting, and the site’s steep grade required costly support piers, columns and a retaining wall. “We went $70,000 over our initial budget forecast, which was a definite whoa,” says Eva.

Wow: It is win-win-win. Cary can age in place with no concerns about housing debt, Eva enjoys hanging out with her mom and Cary’s new grandaughter has her beloved grandma as her babysitter.

David Hochman, a contributing editor for AARP The Magazine, has written cover stories on the pandemic and on climate change for the AARP Bulletin.​​​

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