A month ago, Trulia published an article on the potential for renting out the spare rooms of Baby Boomers to millennials called “Boom-mates: How Empty Nesters Could Help Ease a Housing Shortage.” It was an interesting twist on the concept of multi-generational housing that generated a lot of related headlines. I took interest in the article because it looked like an idea that could provide yet one more counter to the doomsday concept of the “senior sell-off.” The senior sell-off is a demographic and market moment where aging boomers can no longer maintain their over-sized homes and are forced to sell their homes essentially en masse. The sell-off leads to a housing calamity or crash because the market will be devoid of buyers who are interested in the housing preferences from the past. The focus rests primarily on the mismatch in preferences between up and coming millennials and baby boomers (but I wonder when has a generation EVER preferred the housing choices of the people two generations older?).

Starting in May, 2013 I began writing a series of critical articles that cast doubt on the notion of a senior sell-off, especially on the predicted timing of 2020. Arthur C. Nelson, the demographer who came up with the concept of the senior sell-off, has since extended his doomsday clock out to the mid to late 2020s. While that timeline is now late enough again to allow for anything to happen, I remain very skeptical. “Boom-mates” is one of several new reasons.

Trulia author Cameron Simons ponders the possibilities of millennials and baby boomers collaborating to solve their specific but related housing problems: millennials are facing skyrocketing housing costs relative to their budgets and boomers cannot move even if they want to because of those same costs. While many boomers have paid off their homes, they still need ways to reduce the cost of aging in place. Simons speculates that boomers are sitting on 3.6 million empty rooms that could be rented. The estimated economics are a win-win:

“For retired or soon-to-retire boomers, extra rooms are an opportunity to supplement income and offset cost-of-living increases – as much as an additional $14,000 a year. For many older Americans, renting a room provides an economic boost that may help them stay in a home longer.

For young adults, renting a room as opposed to a one-bedroom apartment could save them up to $24,000 annually.”