Making Life with the In-Laws Bearable

Kevin Barnes paid about $280,000 for a newly built home in Orlando this summer, when median prices for existing single-family homes in the area were just $128,000. Yet the 42-year-old chemical salesman thinks he got a good deal. Built by KB Home, the 2,565-square-foot ranch-style house has a second master suite to accommodate Barnes’s mother-in-law, who lives with the family. “She’s a free baby sitter,” he says. “Day care costs about $200 a week.”

A new kind of home is being marketed to multigenerational households, a category that increased by 30 percent from 2000 to 2010, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. KB Home, Lennar, and Pulte Group are among builders that offer models with second master bedrooms, kitchenettes, and separate entrances. Those features may help lure buyers at a time when new residences are selling at a record slow pace. The number of new single-family homes sold sank to 323,000 last year, the fewest since the Commerce Dept. began tracking data in 1963 and down from a peak of 1.28 million in 2005. “This is a niche area that appears to be solid and growing,” says Stephen Melman, director of economic services at the Washington-based National Association of Home Builders. “It’s a demographic thing.”