Shocked at how many families in nice DMV neighborhoods are living in relatives' homes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I will never sell my house in MoCo. When we retire, I will keep the house and have one of my adult children live in it. Financially it doesn't make sense to sell.

THIS. I am planning to move out of the area but has decided not to sell my house in Bethesda. Keeping it for the children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will never sell my house in MoCo. When we retire, I will keep the house and have one of my adult children live in it. Financially it doesn't make sense to sell.

THIS. I am planning to move out of the area but has decided not to sell my house in Bethesda. Keeping it for the children.

Except most kids don’t want their parents’ house. All the old people around me in CC MD are amazed their kids don’t want their house, mainly because it was last updated 30’years ago and lots of deferred maintenance and the kids created lives elsewhere.

Talk to the kids and they wish the parents would just sell it and save them the hassle of cleaning out the house and selling it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've lived in CCMD for 20+yrs and don't know anyone who lives in their parents' house. Maybe I don't run with the right crowd?

I live in on a block in CCDC where 3 of ~ 20 houses were given or faux-rented to the adult kids. A couple of the adult kids finally moved away due to retirement -- early retirement, made possible by not having a mortgage or market rent payment for decades.

I'm not bitter, just reporting a data point. I will say, though, that the people living in these 3 houses don't really resemble the rest of the block in key ways. Such as having a professional career, or working at all. I kind of like the diversity, actually, because it's boring when everyone is a lawyer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How does everyone know who's getting down payments from parents and grandparents paying for private schools? I'm in both of those categories but I've told almost no one. I may have mentioned that my parents pay for the kids' private schools to a few old friends who already know family's situation because we've been close for decades. But none of my neighbors, coworkers, or parents at my kids' school knows this. And I have never mentioned the down payment to anyone. I can't imagine why I would ever tell them. Is this something people talk about or is it a lot of speculation?

It becomes obvious in a number of ways. Dad is at DoJ, mom is part-time at a liberal nonprofit. Somehow the three kids go to GDS. Or, mom is an artist, spouse is a consultant in something he can't describe well, and the grandparents show up on Grandparents Day driving a $120,000 S-Class and dripping in large diamonds. This artist consultant family just bought a turn key renovated home in Cleveland Park.

That sort of thing. It's not hard. More nuanced is the GS-14 parents who work hard and send 3 kids to school for $48k a year. They don't look like loafers, but they also aren't getting that kind of financial aid, so ...

[Anonymous]

Call me a snob but I personally would much rather be around the old money, quiet, artist/consultant couple living in an inherited house than the striving, new money big-law lawyer couple renovating things every year. NO CONTEST. I would take the old money inheritors every single time

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I dont see issue. Lots of people in my area are older and retired with a condo in Florida but are snowbirds and still have their big house in Potomac or Bethesda. Which they barely use.

What is big deal with a kid want to live in it?

Potomac is hardly Bethesda.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:None of this is rocket science and it is baffling that the OP got any traction on the original post that doesn't seem to be credible.

I doubt that in one year (kindergarten) at his kids upscale neighborhood school, he had TWELVE separate families confide the financial arrangements of their households. If you have been on a pick up line or on a playground, you know that does not happen, even for the most aggressively curious among us.

But, OP does presume that we will believe that folks have confessed these intimacies and then he goes on to OUT them by posting a “shocked” post on DCUM. All of this seems creepy.

Who knows why OP exaggerated facts to create a "SHOCKED" post leading to banal conclusions. But we all fell for a pretty low level of tabloid click bait ....

I think it's probably just a bit of jealousy and also probably being triggered by the reactions (or lack thereof) of the old money types in his neighborhood. Probably the people back home in Kansas think it's absolutely amazing that OP worked so hard in school and got to their position in biglaw or whatever, and now they're living in *OMG* Chevy Chase. Then contrast that to the 40-something non-profit worker who breezes past OP in their khakis and polo shirt, unconcerned with whether they'll get a Christmas bonus, living in the same neighborhood despite not caring about money or achievements. That same person also has a higher status in the local social crowd because they went to a tony Northeastern boarding school, got into an Ivy-adjacent because of legacy or donations, and belongs to the most exclusive country club in the area. They hang out with a crowd that would probably find OP a grating nerd and try hard. This seems like a maddening up-ending of the natural order to someone like OP, who DESERVES that house in a way the inheritor did not. And an ultimate reminder that no matter how hard OP tries, there are some things he cannot work his way into.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:None of this is rocket science and it is baffling that the OP got any traction on the original post that doesn't seem to be credible.

I doubt that in one year (kindergarten) at his kids upscale neighborhood school, he had TWELVE separate families confide the financial arrangements of their households. If you have been on a pick up line or on a playground, you know that does not happen, even for the most aggressively curious among us.

But, OP does presume that we will believe that folks have confessed these intimacies and then he goes on to OUT them by posting a “shocked” post on DCUM. All of this seems creepy.

Who knows why OP exaggerated facts to create a "SHOCKED" post leading to banal conclusions. But we all fell for a pretty low level of tabloid click bait ....

I think it's probably just a bit of jealousy and also probably being triggered by the reactions (or lack thereof) of the old money types in his neighborhood. Probably the people back home in Kansas think it's absolutely amazing that OP worked so hard in school and got to their position in biglaw or whatever, and now they're living in *OMG* Chevy Chase. Then contrast that to the 40-something non-profit worker who breezes past OP in their khakis and polo shirt, unconcerned with whether they'll get a Christmas bonus, living in the same neighborhood despite not caring about money or achievements. That same person also has a higher status in the local social crowd because they went to a tony Northeastern boarding school, got into an Ivy-adjacent because of legacy or donations, and belongs to the most exclusive country club in the area. They hang out with a crowd that would probably find OP a grating nerd and try hard. This seems like a maddening up-ending of the natural order to someone like OP, who DESERVES that house in a way the inheritor did not. And an ultimate reminder that no matter how hard OP tries, there are some things he cannot work his way into.

People in Kansas don't know what Chevy Chase is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:None of this is rocket science and it is baffling that the OP got any traction on the original post that doesn't seem to be credible.

I doubt that in one year (kindergarten) at his kids upscale neighborhood school, he had TWELVE separate families confide the financial arrangements of their households. If you have been on a pick up line or on a playground, you know that does not happen, even for the most aggressively curious among us.

But, OP does presume that we will believe that folks have confessed these intimacies and then he goes on to OUT them by posting a “shocked” post on DCUM. All of this seems creepy.

Who knows why OP exaggerated facts to create a "SHOCKED" post leading to banal conclusions. But we all fell for a pretty low level of tabloid click bait ....

I think it's probably just a bit of jealousy and also probably being triggered by the reactions (or lack thereof) of the old money types in his neighborhood. Probably the people back home in Kansas think it's absolutely amazing that OP worked so hard in school and got to their position in biglaw or whatever, and now they're living in *OMG* Chevy Chase. Then contrast that to the 40-something non-profit worker who breezes past OP in their khakis and polo shirt, unconcerned with whether they'll get a Christmas bonus, living in the same neighborhood despite not caring about money or achievements. That same person also has a higher status in the local social crowd because they went to a tony Northeastern boarding school, got into an Ivy-adjacent because of legacy or donations, and belongs to the most exclusive country club in the area. They hang out with a crowd that would probably find OP a grating nerd and try hard. This seems like a maddening up-ending of the natural order to someone like OP, who DESERVES that house in a way the inheritor did not. And an ultimate reminder that no matter how hard OP tries, there are some things he cannot work his way into.

Sure. And the Ivy adjacent country clubber can't raise his IQ two SDs, either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:None of this is rocket science and it is baffling that the OP got any traction on the original post that doesn't seem to be credible.

I doubt that in one year (kindergarten) at his kids upscale neighborhood school, he had TWELVE separate families confide the financial arrangements of their households. If you have been on a pick up line or on a playground, you know that does not happen, even for the most aggressively curious among us.

But, OP does presume that we will believe that folks have confessed these intimacies and then he goes on to OUT them by posting a “shocked” post on DCUM. All of this seems creepy.

Who knows why OP exaggerated facts to create a "SHOCKED" post leading to banal conclusions. But we all fell for a pretty low level of tabloid click bait ....

I think it's probably just a bit of jealousy and also probably being triggered by the reactions (or lack thereof) of the old money types in his neighborhood. Probably the people back home in Kansas think it's absolutely amazing that OP worked so hard in school and got to their position in biglaw or whatever, and now they're living in *OMG* Chevy Chase. Then contrast that to the 40-something non-profit worker who breezes past OP in their khakis and polo shirt, unconcerned with whether they'll get a Christmas bonus, living in the same neighborhood despite not caring about money or achievements. That same person also has a higher status in the local social crowd because they went to a tony Northeastern boarding school, got into an Ivy-adjacent because of legacy or donations, and belongs to the most exclusive country club in the area. They hang out with a crowd that would probably find OP a grating nerd and try hard. This seems like a maddening up-ending of the natural order to someone like OP, who DESERVES that house in a way the inheritor did not. And an ultimate reminder that no matter how hard OP tries, there are some things he cannot work his way into.

Sure. And the Ivy adjacent country clubber can't raise his IQ two SDs, either.

The Ivy adjacent country clubber likely has a pretty high IQ. And if it wasn't any higher, it doesnt seem it would improve his quality of life nor happiness anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will never sell my house in MoCo. When we retire, I will keep the house and have one of my adult children live in it. Financially it doesn't make sense to sell.

THIS. I am planning to move out of the area but has decided not to sell my house in Bethesda. Keeping it for the children.

Except most kids don’t want their parents’ house. All the old people around me in CC MD are amazed their kids don’t want their house, mainly because it was last updated 30’years ago and lots of deferred maintenance and the kids created lives elsewhere.

Talk to the kids and they wish the parents would just sell it and save them the hassle of cleaning out the house and selling it.

Give me a mortgage free house and I don’t mind cleaning it and selling it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does everyone know who's getting down payments from parents and grandparents paying for private schools? I'm in both of those categories but I've told almost no one. I may have mentioned that my parents pay for the kids' private schools to a few old friends who already know family's situation because we've been close for decades. But none of my neighbors, coworkers, or parents at my kids' school knows this. And I have never mentioned the down payment to anyone. I can't imagine why I would ever tell them. Is this something people talk about or is it a lot of speculation?

It becomes obvious in a number of ways. Dad is at DoJ, mom is part-time at a liberal nonprofit. Somehow the three kids go to GDS. Or, mom is an artist, spouse is a consultant in something he can't describe well, and the grandparents show up on Grandparents Day driving a $120,000 S-Class and dripping in large diamonds. This artist consultant family just bought a turn key renovated home in Cleveland Park.

That sort of thing. It's not hard. More nuanced is the GS-14 parents who work hard and send 3 kids to school for $48k a year. They don't look like loafers, but they also aren't getting that kind of financial aid, so ...

I don’t assume someone is wealthy based on car or jewelry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will never sell my house in MoCo. When we retire, I will keep the house and have one of my adult children live in it. Financially it doesn't make sense to sell.

THIS. I am planning to move out of the area but has decided not to sell my house in Bethesda. Keeping it for the children.

Except most kids don’t want their parents’ house. All the old people around me in CC MD are amazed their kids don’t want their house, mainly because it was last updated 30’years ago and lots of deferred maintenance and the kids created lives elsewhere.

Talk to the kids and they wish the parents would just sell it and save them the hassle of cleaning out the house and selling it.

Give me a mortgage free house and I don’t mind cleaning it and selling it.

That’s silly…you would of course prefer to just get the money vs cleaning and selling it.

The other thing nobody mentions is often there is more than one kid and parents want to be fair with inheritance.

If they give the house to one of the kids that often means that kid’s inheritance goes down by the value of the house. If the value of the house is more than equal cash in the estate, that means one of the kids has to buy out their siblings if they want it.

[Anonymous]

So many people here eager to jump on OP in the nastiest way.

It seems obvious that she was just saying that in many cases, people being able to afford this insane market is just an illusion. So don’t beat yourself up that you must be doing something wrong if you can’t afford the same things even if you have a similar income.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Call me a snob but I personally would much rather be around the old money, quiet, artist/consultant couple living in an inherited house than the striving, new money big-law lawyer couple renovating things every year. NO CONTEST. I would take the old money inheritors every single time

Not if they are rude!!! Our neighbors are living off their parents, but they act like they have enough money to support their lifestyle. It’s disgusting!