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Great article today in Bloomberg about home builders who are targeting a trend for home buyers to have more than one generation (and several pets) living under one roof.

Apparently, households with more than one generation are now so popular that home builders are accommodating this demand. For example, homes with a second master bedroom are not as uncommon as one would think.

The idea is simple: If home buyers want it, give it to them.

Here’s some info from the article to whet your interest:

Kevin Barnes figures buying a newly built home saved him money. That’s because he chose a model with a second master bedroom for his mother-in-law.

“She’s a free babysitter,” said the 42-year-old chemical salesman, who in June purchased a four-bedroom house in Orlando, Florida, built by KB Home. (KBH) “Day care costs about $200 a week.”

The Barnes residence is part of a growing line of new homes marketed to multigenerational families, a category that increased by 30 percent from 2000 to 2010, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. KB Home, Lennar Corp. (LEN) and PulteGroup Inc. are among the builders that offer models with second master bedrooms, kitchenettes and separate entrances.

Those features may help lure buyers at a time when new homes are selling at a record slow pace and more Americans are living with extended families, said Megan McGrath, a homebuilding-industry analyst with MKM Partners LP.

“When builders are still fighting for every sale, hitting on something that resonates with your local demographic can make a difference,” McGrath, based in Stamford, Connecticut, said in an e-mail.

The number of households comprising three generations rose to almost 5.1 million in 2010 from 3.9 million a decade earlier, according to the Census Bureau. An estimated 51 million Americans, or 16.7 percent of the population, lived in homes with at least two generations of adults in 2009, up from 42 million in 2000, the Pew Research Center said in an October report.

Some Pulte model homes include a room decorated with a doggie couch, chew toys and “dog eye chart” with pictures of a bone, a cat and paw prints — stretching the extended family concept beyond the human species.

“We heard from our buyers: We have pets and we consider them a part of the family, and we’d rather have space that’s allocated to the pet, just like we would a bedroom for a child,” Scott Thomas, Pulte’s director of architecture, said in a telephone interview from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

I definitely can understand the dog part of this. I have three and they actually sleep in their own rooms sometime. That will probably change when my baby comes next spring, but for now, each dog gets its own bedroom.

Read the full article on Bloomberg here.

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