2023: where will you move when your kids leave home?
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Anonymous
This. The crime got out of control with the school closures. Previously, I used to walk the RCP trails most days with my dog, but there's no way I'd go there alone on a weekday now. |
Anonymous
| Rochester, NY |
Anonymous
It's not what I observe, and I am not even from here. I see a lot of older retired people remaining in their homes and not selling, some upgrade to bigger homes, others downsize, some buy second homes or condos elsewhere and live in family homes part time, but apparently people aren't all fleeing away. I also see kids coming back to visit during college and even moving back in after graduation. This might be a new trend due to higher COL that keeps only climbing up. Kids "flying away" and easily building lives elsewhere isn't a guarantee, it's probably they want to come back and move into the house they grew up in until they get up on their feet, and they seek jobs in the local area, and reunite with their school friends. I am seeing this happening just as much as young people moving out of state forever, empty-nester parents selling family home and moving to the retirement "pastures". |
Anonymous
| I don't have roots anywhere, moved around a lot since childhood. I never had a home I could return to that would be my "base", and provide shelter that would be more than crushing on a couch. I project that this is what kids may want even after they graduate, they want a home base, a place where they will always have a room and where they put down roots, have memories, etc. I do think kids who spend most of their school years in one place put down their own roots, and if we sell and move, then we cut their roots. The problem is that it may become costly to keep family homes these days with taxes, maintenance, repair costs going up, it's probably what eventually pushes people away. Those with money seem to keep their homes here and spend time in other locations, and share homes with their adult kids. |
Anonymous
| What is "leaving home"? Going to college? Going for a 1st job after college? What if they want to come back? |
Anonymous
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Home is wherever your nuclear family is located and resides most of the time, so it makes no matter where that might be.
If you aren't dependent on jobs or schools, have at it and live where you are happy, and where you find beauty. It depends on one's frame of reference what is beautiful. If one grew up next to the beach, then one is usually happy in and accustomed to that sort of setting. So be it. |
Anonymous
Yes it took us 2 years to buy a home in our target neighborhood because there is so little inventory. People stay in their homes for decades. The ones that sell either are going into assisted living/ downsizing, died, or are moving into a bigger house in a same or adjacent neighborhood. It doesn't feel transient at all. |
Anonymous
+1 it was more transient in my 20s-early 30s as people were figuring out their lives. But, living in Arlington, I still know most of the families I got to know when my 1st kid started elementary school and he's now in college. Some moved away for a while (foreign service) but are now back. Also all but one family in a playgroup I joined when DS was a baby still live here and I see a couple of those friends regularly. A couple of my friends even grew up in Arlington. I like it here and DS wants to live in DC after college, although my younger child doesn't. So, I expect at least the first phase of empty nest/retirement will be here, but maybe in a different house. |
Anonymous
So when does the nuclear family end? If children leave and go off on their own and you are no longer living under the same roof, isn’t it done? Or do they have to marry first? Or is it when they have children of their own? |
Anonymous
Hilarious. |
Anonymous
+1. I currently live in Central Jersey area and its so beautiful where I live that I always laugh at the reputation New Jersey has. Cream Ridge is so perfect for me, and although I live in a neighboring town I have a friend that just bought a home there and I am looking for one there myself. Oh...and Robert Wood Johnson is a wonderful hospital, and we also have easy access to New York City and Philadelphia Hospitals from where I live. |
Anonymous
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+1 on moving somewhere fun not far from an airport so adult kids & grandkids to visit. Buy a house with a couple extra bedrooms and a pool. Your adults kids will return, and you can celebrate holidays there.
My parents did this and are living their best life. |
Anonymous
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You people are really something else.
You move to the DC area because you have a single focus in your life – your high-powered career. You spend your entire life here focused on that, and when you do decide it’s time to fit some kids in you make damned sure they follow your single-minded footsteps and go off to the best bumper-sticker worthy college they can get into and off they go and never return. Then, once your all consuming career is over and your high achieving kids are long gone, you look around and tell yourself there is no community here and that this area is too transient for you to stick around. Some of us haven’t structured our lives the way you did. So we do have a community here, and we have every reason to stick around. |
Anonymous
+1 although best if this place is actually close to at least one of your kids. My two siblings and I all moved away from the city where we grew up. My parents kept our childhood home until my older sister and I had both settled in different areas and had our first babies. Then they picked the area of those that they preferred, moved to a 1-level 3-bdrm house in a lake/golf community with a lot of recreation amenities and had a great 15+ years there. They were very involved with my sister's family, the rest of us were happy to visit there including me bringing my kids for a couple weeks every summer. And my sister was there to help when health became a problem. Dad died two years ago and now Mom lives with my sister. I would be happy to follow the same model. |
Anonymous
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I will continue living in my sfh in suburbs of dmv. As an immigrant,I feel that this is the best place in USA. My community is here. Maybe our kids will get jobs here? In any case, our home remains the home of my kids.
Eventually, we will take life as it comes. Nothing is set in stone. |