'Speed roommating' events bring cost-cutters together
Star-Telegram
By Jamie Smith Hopkins
...Lots of people are looking to double up – or triple or quadruple up – these days. Living alone is a luxury that fewer people can afford in this economic downturn, with unemployment near 10 percent nationally and personal income falling.
A new study of 80 U.S. metro areas found that the number of households fell by 1.2 million between 2005 and 2008 even as population rose. The recession has so severely shaken people's lives that it could be 2012 before Americans start forming new households at a normal rate, Gary Painter of the University of Southern California wrote in an April report for the Mortgage Bankers Association...