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By Paul Losch

About this blog: I was a "corporate brat" growing up and lived in different parts of the country, ending in Houston, Texas for high school. After attending college at UC Davis, and getting an MBA at Harvard, I embarked on a marketing career, mai... (More)

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Hidden Housing Shortage

Uploaded: Nov 23, 2013

Empty nesters like me, take note.

There are many people with good jobs and future prospects in SV that are struggling to find a place to live. There are people who need short term housing while a loved one is under care at Stanford Medical Center.

I have decided to provide some rooms in my house to people who are here and need a place to stay for a confined period of time.

It does have implications for how to get along, use of bathrooms, among other things.

This is something that is not measured, let alone well understood,

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Posted by a postdoc at Stanford, a resident of Barron Park,
on Nov 23, 2013 at 9:01 pm

Paul, thanks for your thoughtful post. I'm renting a room from a wonderful empty nester like you and am most grateful for it.

My advice for handling shared spaces and resources as the homeowner: be friendly but very clear up front about your expectations. My own experience is that if a person from whom I'm renting is vague about something (e.g., fruit from trees), then I err on the side of caution and don't take advantage of the thing, only to learn later the homeowner was happy to share. So stating clear expectations up front helps everyone.

By the way, anybody considering renting a room to a Stanford researcher: feel free to ask the potential renter for an email reference from her professor (called by insiders a "PI"). It's probably the easiest way to feel confident about with whom you're sharing your house.

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