234: How a Seattle Startup Is Fighting America's Home Ownership Gap

Katrina Romatowski joins Ami Kassar and Lynn Ozer to talk about reSpace, her company making single family home ownership possible for about the cost of renting a one bedroom apartment. She explains how fractional co-living ownership works, why the listing service in her market won't touch her properties, and why retirees may be her biggest market. It's a sharp look at the housing affordability crisis and one entrepreneur's plan to fix it.\

“What reSpace does is we say, ‘Hey, people are living this way. Now everybody gets a piece of the economic benefit. Everybody gets a piece of the pie.’”

Today's episode covers how Katrina went from selling candy in middle school to building a real estate brokerage and a nonprofit, how the reSpace model gives co-living residents real ownership instead of rent, how financing, house rules, disputes, and resale work when you share a home, why the Northwest Multiple Listing Service won't list her properties and how she's going direct to buyers instead, why retirees who want to live with lifelong friends may be her strongest market, and her plan to expand up and down the West Coast in 2027.

Connect with Katrina: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katrinaeileen/

Learn more about reSpace: https://www.respace.co/

Recorded on 7/2/26