Homesharing option available for Clallam County residents
Published 1:30 am Saturday, February 21, 2026
PORT ANGELES — A new homesharing option is open to Clallam County residents.
A partnership between the Port Angeles Chamber of Commerce and Nesterly, a company which hosts homesharing listings, has created Olympic Home Share.
The chamber signed the contract with Nesterly on Jan. 7 and Olympic Home Share became operational Feb. 4.
“Our first two listings are up now; I think that’s pretty fast,” Dr. Nancy Stephanz said.
Stephanz, a retired physician who moved to Port Angeles 10 years ago, was the driving force to bring Nesterly to Clallam County.
“Homesharing is where you rent a bedroom in your house that you will live in, or you’ll live somewhere on the property, to someone you are not related to and you share the common spaces with that person,” Stephanz said. “It’s not short-term rentals. The length of the lease has to be at least one month and can be up to one year.”
Stephanz came across Nesterly while investigating why affordable housing is so difficult to build in Clallam County, according to an article she wrote in the November 2025 issue of the Seniors Sunset Times.
“The problem is complex and multifactorial but I also found out about the option of homesharing,” she wrote. “If you think back to before Social Security was created, this is basically what widows had to do to survive — rent out rooms in their homes.”
Stephanz saw a PBS “Newshour” story about homesharing during the COVID-19 pandemic that focused on Nesterly, which was founded in 2017 by a graduate student named Noelle Marcus in Boston.
“The really nice thing about Nesterly is all the things they provide for lower costs,” Stephanz said. “It’s free to look at listings and to post. They have people who can help you get your post listed. You can call for help or email pictures to attach to listings. They’ll also help counsel you on how you can describe your listing.”
Nesterly also provides security for homeowners and for renters with a multi-step screening process, according to nesterly.com.
“Complete applications are required to sign up,” the website states. “Each application is reviewed and approved by real humans on our team. An industry-leading comprehensive background screening service conducts full criminal record checks on both hosts and renters. Two references are contacted for every user and outside testimonials on what the person is like as a professional and roommate are made public on users’ profiles. Renters must provide employment verification and, when applicable, proof of school enrollment.”
Nesterly even has employees trained in conflict resolution to deal with any issues that might come up between homeowners and renters, Stephanz said.
“They call once a month to check on homeowners and renters, and you can call them if you need help,” she said. “Either party can end the lease with one month’s notice. They try really hard to support the people who list with them.”
Nesterly makes rent collection easier for both parties by using its own financial system, Stephanz said. The system gets the bank information for both parties and handles the transaction automatically each month.
“The homeowner never has to ask the renter for money, which I think is really a great perk,” Stephanz said. “They also encourage task exchange to help lower the dollar amount of rent.”
Those tasks can be lawn care, cleaning, cooking or whatever other tasks the homeowners and renters agree to with the tasks charged at a minimum wage per hour and that amount deducted from the rent.
One hurdle to bringing Nesterly to Clallam County was that Nesterly requires a partner agency to sign a contract and pay them an onboarding fee plus a monthly fee to give the county access to its intellectual property online.
The Port Angeles Chamber of Commerce has become that partner agency and offers access to Nesterly through its website, portangeles.org/olympichomeshare.com.
“The Port Angeles Chamber is hosting the website for (Nesterly), which means that we signed an agreement with them,” Chamber operations manager Laken Folsom said. “It’s mostly an advertising agreement that we signed because Nesterly requires a pre-existing organization to provide outreach.”
Another issue that needed to be sorted out involved homeowners associations.
“There’s a lot of boilerplate language in homeowners associations that says only members of a single family can live on the lot,” Stephanz said.
She researched the issue, however, and found that House Bill 1054, which went into effect on June 6, 2024, made changes to common interest community associations such as HOAs. The bill prohibits those associations from adopting or enforcing a restriction, covenant, condition, bylaw, rule, regulation, provision of a governing document or master deed provision that regulates or limits the number of unrelated persons that may occupy a unit, according to information provided to Stephanz from state Rep. Adam Bernbaum’s staff.
Stephanz also provided information from the state Landlord Tenant Act, which says landlords must supply adequate locks and keys. Rooms rented in homes also must have lockable doors.
“Whether the tenant chooses to lock (the rooms) is up to them, but the person renting the rooms has to provide lockable doors,” Stephanz said.
Stephanz is set to appear on the Todd Ortloff show with chamber Executive Director Marc Abshire at 1:05 p.m. Tuesday on KONP radio, 1450 AM, 101.7 FM in Port Angeles or 101.3 FM in Sequim.
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Reporter Emily Hanson can be reached by email at emily.hanson@peninsuladailynews.com.
