2023: where will you move when your kids leave home?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

+1

I discovered community in the DMV and revised my career to have more time and life balance. We will stay put in the DMV partly so kids can return and visit with friends at school breaks. I can’t imagine them wanting to visit if we live in a town with zero people they know…

Yep. Admittedly, we moved here decades ago for a so-called “high powered job” for one of us but we had had our kids young (not just when we could “fit them in”) and already had a couple of pre-schoolers when we got here.

We put the kids in public instead of private school, encouraged state colleges, and stayed in the same suburban neighborhood for decades, all of which solidified our local ties.

When we moved as empty nesters, it was just across the river into downtown DC. All of our kids and most of their friends (and friends’ parents) stayed in the area. It’s definitely home to many, many people.

I mean, if you’re gonna move here only for a job, have kids later in life, get a nanny, keep plugging away, then put the kids in private schools disconnected with the neighborhood where the graduate disperse themselves to colleges all over the country, how to you expect your family to put down roots here? When the career is over and the kids are gone, what’s left?

Many of my friends and family are friends with people from all over the US and the world - they prefer to not have a tiny bubble.

Such a typical elitist and defensive response. You can both live here and be settled here and have your family here and be “friends with people from all over the US and the world.” You just see the local folks more often. And the reality is, from a human nature standpoint, “absence makes the heart grow fonder” is less of a real thing than “out of sight out of mind.”

I’d like to resettle my family somewhere besides DC once I stop working though. I live here, like a lot of people, because my pay and benefits are much more than somewhere like New York City, where someone with a bunch of Fed jobs on their CV could only afford a duplex in some far out place in Queens or Staten Island. After DCs are out of school and we have a bunch of money in our generous Fed funded retirement account we can afford to downsize to much nicer places in Manhattan.

Our friends will be more than happy to visit us a couple times a year in the greatest city in the world. There’s a big difference in moving away to rural Tennessee and moving to a nicer, close city like NYC if you’re concerned about seeing friends and family. We’ll be our kids’ and our friend’s Manhattan Airbnb.

I'm looking forward to this post on DCUM in 20 years:

"My MIL keeps demanding that we visit them in NYC because it's the world's greatest city but she doesn't understand why we don't go more than once a year. I enjoy NYC, but they live in a cramped apartment, there's no room for all of us and the kids have to sleep on the floor and NYC is always dirty and gritty. It's awful in the summers where I'd rather be at the beach. And so expensive to do anything with the kids. We always feel obliged to take the in laws out to dinner and it cost a fortune for all of us to eat out. And then on top of it, it's not so easy taking a whole weekend to go to NYC because we have things to do on the weekend and we work during the week. She just refuses to understand that it'd be a lot easier for them to come stay with us in our suburban house where there's plenty of room and the kids' schedules aren't disrupted. Can anyone suggest how I can gently let her know it really isn't that pleasurable to go up to NYC?"

This made me laugh! My single-with-no-kids BIL lives in Brooklyn and complains regularly that we always host holidays at our suburban home here. We rarely go visit him for a lot of the reasons you listed; it's especially hard with small kids.

That said, my ILs live in a 3-bedroom apartment in Chicago and we love visiting them. They have enough space to host us, a parking space that they borrow from a friend for us in their building, and we can walk to the lakefront and museums and trains with our kids. So, if you have the money to afford all that in a big city, then go for it. Or, if you just really want to live in NYC for all the day-to-day benefits you would enjoy, then make that work for you and just don't be surprised when it's harder for your kids to visit.

NYC >>>>> Chicago, plus it’s less than a 4 hour drive from here. Much easier for kids to visit. Our family of 4 stays in a single hotel room when we visit NYC and do just fine. Why would someone not visit their parents if their parents had a 2 br apartment, with one room reserved for guests. Makes no sense. A lot of just love the suburbs. We don’t.

[Anonymous]

My friend with adult kids have a place in Florida and one in NY.

The kids visit the place they are not at.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband and I have lived in the city (DC) for the past 25+ years in 3 different homes and we are finally done with this city. Not bagging on it, but we are ready to stop taking care of a home and start living our semi-retired lives in a new place. We both have remote jobs and can live anywhere. We hate the frigid cold but also don’t want to burn up in the desert SW. We think out West is best because of the natural beauty, national parks, and lower density of humans. But we don’t want to live super remote. Anyone else either moved already or making plans to go someplace that fits this bill or plans to go? Help us decide!!!

It won’t be until about 2030 but we will be retiring at our beach house on the central Jersey shore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The real trick is to have a couple of residences that you can bounce between during your retirement years. If you keep residency days below the statutory threshold, you can conceivably also eliminate any state taxes. When not staying in a home, you rent it out as a furnished unit.

Lets say you had a 1BR in NYC, house in Chevy Chase MD, and a home in San Diego CA. With enough documentation and staying below the 183 day/six month rule, you could conceivably pay no state income tax other than that related to rental income of the home in the jurisdiction.

You can’t not claim ANY state if you live in the US you have to pick one.

[Anonymous]

I’d love to retire to London or NYC or Italy or Northern Nee England or some combination thereof.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The real trick is to have a couple of residences that you can bounce between during your retirement years. If you keep residency days below the statutory threshold, you can conceivably also eliminate any state taxes. When not staying in a home, you rent it out as a furnished unit.

Lets say you had a 1BR in NYC, house in Chevy Chase MD, and a home in San Diego CA. With enough documentation and staying below the 183 day/six month rule, you could conceivably pay no state income tax other than that related to rental income of the home in the jurisdiction.

Really? We have homes in MD and DE and I’d get a third if it meant skipping MD taxes. I’m actually considering moving to NJ, not the cheapest but they have excellent public safety. I’d not be so panicked about crime.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

We have community here. But we can also find community somewhere more pleasant. If we don’t have to live in this sheethole then why would we stay? We will keep in touch with good friends. Just like we keep in touch with friends we met when we lived elsewhere.

If my life was merely one of “keeping in touch with friends”
who now live elsewhere I’d be pretty depressed.

We don’t “have” to live here either. We choose to live here because our roots are now here and our entire family also lives here. Apparently none of this is true in your case - presumably because you structured your life just as I have described.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

+1

I discovered community in the DMV and revised my career to have more time and life balance. We will stay put in the DMV partly so kids can return and visit with friends at school breaks. I can’t imagine them wanting to visit if we live in a town with zero people they know…

Yep. Admittedly, we moved here decades ago for a so-called “high powered job” for one of us but we had had our kids young (not just when we could “fit them in”) and already had a couple of pre-schoolers when we got here.

We put the kids in public instead of private school, encouraged state colleges, and stayed in the same suburban neighborhood for decades, all of which solidified our local ties.

When we moved as empty nesters, it was just across the river into downtown DC. All of our kids and most of their friends (and friends’ parents) stayed in the area. It’s definitely home to many, many people.

I mean, if you’re gonna move here only for a job, have kids later in life, get a nanny, keep plugging away, then put the kids in private schools disconnected with the neighborhood where the graduate disperse themselves to colleges all over the country, how to you expect your family to put down roots here? When the career is over and the kids are gone, what’s left?

Sounds like an idea we might want to consider. Could you share where you live? Assuming it's a smaller footprint...how was the downsize to condo/apt life? And do you like downtown DC?

We bought a rowhome on a very nice street in a highly desirable and walkable (nearly 100 walk score) for about the same price that we sold our suburban house for. It has a basement rental which covers the mortgage. We love it. Absolutely everything is at our fingertips. We have lots of friends visit and since, as I said, our adult kids are also all settled in the DMV they’ll often come into town for brunch or dinner and sometimes leave their kids overnight etc. living in the area as well. We do have a large second home less than 2 hours away and spend a good amount of time there too - it’s another place that’s great for visitors. And, of course, we are back to traveling whenever we can now that Covid is less of an issue.

So, yea, we’re not going to just pack up and move away and write off the DMV. We have a nice life here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

We have community here. But we can also find community somewhere more pleasant. If we don’t have to live in this sheethole then why would we stay? We will keep in touch with good friends. Just like we keep in touch with friends we met when we lived elsewhere.

If my life was merely one of “keeping in touch with friends”
who now live elsewhere I’d be pretty depressed.

We don’t “have” to live here either. We choose to live here because our roots are now here and our entire family also lives here. Apparently none of this is true in your case - presumably because you structured your life just as I have described.

I'd be pretty depressed if I had poor reading comprehension.

And I'd be pretty depressed to forever live in this sheethole.

YMMV.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

+1

I discovered community in the DMV and revised my career to have more time and life balance. We will stay put in the DMV partly so kids can return and visit with friends at school breaks. I can’t imagine them wanting to visit if we live in a town with zero people they know…

Yep. Admittedly, we moved here decades ago for a so-called “high powered job” for one of us but we had had our kids young (not just when we could “fit them in”) and already had a couple of pre-schoolers when we got here.

We put the kids in public instead of private school, encouraged state colleges, and stayed in the same suburban neighborhood for decades, all of which solidified our local ties.

When we moved as empty nesters, it was just across the river into downtown DC. All of our kids and most of their friends (and friends’ parents) stayed in the area. It’s definitely home to many, many people.

I mean, if you’re gonna move here only for a job, have kids later in life, get a nanny, keep plugging away, then put the kids in private schools disconnected with the neighborhood where the graduate disperse themselves to colleges all over the country, how to you expect your family to put down roots here? When the career is over and the kids are gone, what’s left?

Many of my friends and family are friends with people from all over the US and the world - they prefer to not have a tiny bubble.

Such a typical elitist and defensive response. You can both live here and be settled here and have your family here and be “friends with people from all over the US and the world.” You just see the local folks more often. And the reality is, from a human nature standpoint, “absence makes the heart grow fonder” is less of a real thing than “out of sight out of mind.”

I’d like to resettle my family somewhere besides DC once I stop working though. I live here, like a lot of people, because my pay and benefits are much more than somewhere like New York City, where someone with a bunch of Fed jobs on their CV could only afford a duplex in some far out place in Queens or Staten Island. After DCs are out of school and we have a bunch of money in our generous Fed funded retirement account we can afford to downsize to much nicer places in Manhattan.

Our friends will be more than happy to visit us a couple times a year in the greatest city in the world. There’s a big difference in moving away to rural Tennessee and moving to a nicer, close city like NYC if you’re concerned about seeing friends and family. We’ll be our kids’ and our friend’s Manhattan Airbnb.

I'm looking forward to this post on DCUM in 20 years:

"My MIL keeps demanding that we visit them in NYC because it's the world's greatest city but she doesn't understand why we don't go more than once a year. I enjoy NYC, but they live in a cramped apartment, there's no room for all of us and the kids have to sleep on the floor and NYC is always dirty and gritty. It's awful in the summers where I'd rather be at the beach. And so expensive to do anything with the kids. We always feel obliged to take the in laws out to dinner and it cost a fortune for all of us to eat out. And then on top of it, it's not so easy taking a whole weekend to go to NYC because we have things to do on the weekend and we work during the week. She just refuses to understand that it'd be a lot easier for them to come stay with us in our suburban house where there's plenty of room and the kids' schedules aren't disrupted. Can anyone suggest how I can gently let her know it really isn't that pleasurable to go up to NYC?"

This made me laugh! My single-with-no-kids BIL lives in Brooklyn and complains regularly that we always host holidays at our suburban home here. We rarely go visit him for a lot of the reasons you listed; it's especially hard with small kids.

That said, my ILs live in a 3-bedroom apartment in Chicago and we love visiting them. They have enough space to host us, a parking space that they borrow from a friend for us in their building, and we can walk to the lakefront and museums and trains with our kids. So, if you have the money to afford all that in a big city, then go for it. Or, if you just really want to live in NYC for all the day-to-day benefits you would enjoy, then make that work for you and just don't be surprised when it's harder for your kids to visit.

NYC >>>>> Chicago, plus it’s less than a 4 hour drive from here. Much easier for kids to visit. Our family of 4 stays in a single hotel room when we visit NYC and do just fine. Why would someone not visit their parents if their parents had a 2 br apartment, with one room reserved for guests. Makes no sense. A lot of just love the suburbs. We don’t.

Think “makes no sense” is stretching it a bit. As a baseline, most parents and their older kids/teenagers don’t want to stay in one bedroom all together for any extended time. I mean, sure, if you have to…but think we can all admit it’s not the most fun or comfortable arrangement.

But more to the point of this discussion: Your current family of four will expand greatly once your kids marry and multiply. Do you really expect your children, their significant others, and later their own children to all stay in one room? Of course not.

Now, that may be fine with you—you may not want to host holidays or otherwise expect your children and their families to ever visit at the same time. And that may very well work out. What we are discussing, however, is when parents don’t set traditions/accommodate their young adult children during college, their 20s, and the early years of marriage before kids, etc…and then seem surprised and upset when those adult children don’t prioritize traveling to them and spending holidays together.

(Also, not sure why you felt the need to compare New York to Chicago, given the previous poster wasn’t doing so.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I dont get people who want to move away from friends and community they spent 18+ years building unless its totally unaffordable. When my kids are grown ill get to garden more, spend more time with the friends i made and enjoy my neighborhood more.

I know many people who want to leave the DMV area-it can be a cold transient area. Some people get lucky(like yourself) and land in a neighborhood that is warm and wonderful... but I have more friends looking to leave the DMV area than those wanting to stay. The interesting part is they all have beautiful homes but still feel meh about living here. The weather doesn't help-you're far from the beach. I don't get not getting it.

DMV does have a more transient feel than other places I’ve lived in. A lot of people transfer here for jobs and transfer out a few years later. Sometimes it feels like we’re the place you go to build your career so you can go back and compete in the place you want to be.

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".

+1 I see a lot of people in my Bethesda neighborhood who either grew up in the same neighborhood (sometimes the same house), moved from Potomac or Rockville or DC, where they grew up. My oldest is a senior in college and he loves coming back to see his HS friends. He’s said he eventually wants to move back here, but he wants to make a high salary in a Lower Cost of Living city first - Philly or Chicago most likely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

We have community here. But we can also find community somewhere more pleasant. If we don’t have to live in this sheethole then why would we stay? We will keep in touch with good friends. Just like we keep in touch with friends we met when we lived elsewhere.

If my life was merely one of “keeping in touch with friends”
who now live elsewhere I’d be pretty depressed.

We don’t “have” to live here either. We choose to live here because our roots are now here and our entire family also lives here. Apparently none of this is true in your case - presumably because you structured your life just as I have described.

I'd be pretty depressed if I had poor reading comprehension.

And I'd be pretty depressed to forever live in this sheethole.

YMMV.

Maybe if you weren’t such an angry and nasty twit you wouldn’t have to keep moving hoping you can “find community somewhere more pleasant.” Clearly you haven’t found it yet.

How far away have your kids moved from you? Probably not as far as they wished they could.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

We have community here. But we can also find community somewhere more pleasant. If we don’t have to live in this sheethole then why would we stay? We will keep in touch with good friends. Just like we keep in touch with friends we met when we lived elsewhere.

If my life was merely one of “keeping in touch with friends”
who now live elsewhere I’d be pretty depressed.

We don’t “have” to live here either. We choose to live here because our roots are now here and our entire family also lives here. Apparently none of this is true in your case - presumably because you structured your life just as I have described.

I'd be pretty depressed if I had poor reading comprehension.

And I'd be pretty depressed to forever live in this sheethole.

YMMV.

Maybe if you weren’t such an angry and nasty twit you wouldn’t have to keep moving hoping you can “find community somewhere more pleasant.” Clearly you haven’t found it yet.

How far away have your kids moved from you? Probably not as far as they wished they could.

Clearly, you are projecting.

My kids are still young, but I'm encouraging them to leave this area so they can discover the great big world out there. There are much better places to live and you can find good friends wherever you go. It'd be sad if this area was the only one they knew.

[Anonymous]

When they leave home? Stay put and work so we can cash-flow college (if needed).

Once we retire? Back to CA was always our plan (Monterey area). But let's see in 20 years if CA is even inhabitable anymore, between the wildfires and torrential rain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The real trick is to have a couple of residences that you can bounce between during your retirement years. If you keep residency days below the statutory threshold, you can conceivably also eliminate any state taxes. When not staying in a home, you rent it out as a furnished unit.

Lets say you had a 1BR in NYC, house in Chevy Chase MD, and a home in San Diego CA. With enough documentation and staying below the 183 day/six month rule, you could conceivably pay no state income tax other than that related to rental income of the home in the jurisdiction.

Really? We have homes in MD and DE and I’d get a third if it meant skipping MD taxes. I’m actually considering moving to NJ, not the cheapest but they have excellent public safety. I’d not be so panicked about crime.

Just spend majority of the year (6 months + 1 day) in Delaware + move all accounts/vehicle registration/voter registration and you're now out of Maryland officially. You'll need to give up the Maryland homestead credit.

Of course, work with your accountant to ensure you've done everything correctly.