Reply to I HATE the suburbs and have a chance to leave. This is long..more experienced parents help?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We are not in DC, but another major city. DH and I both grew up in the city and are well traveled "city people". We bought a house before we had kids when we were 26yo thinking we'd go to a great school district in the suburbs and start a family which we did. We are now 34yo with kids ages 5 and 3. Older kid is in Kindergarten at our fantastic public school district, but I just HATE it here. There's no friendly feeling in our neighborhood. We have been here almost 8 years and do not have friendships with any of our neighbors despite really trying. I loathe having to drive everywhere- pack the kids in and out of the car seats, drive to all errands, etc. I hate that every restaurant near us is a fricken chain, there's no independent coffee shops, so many big box stores. We have 5bd/2ba but our house is so outdated, choppy, and I just haven't been able to put money into it because I'm not happy here. The last 3 weekends [b]I've taken my kids on the 8am train into the city and come back before bedtime and just refueled my soul with park hopping, pastries at coffee shops, markets, museums, a play.[/b]

My grandparents own a 2 flat in my favorite part of the city. DH and I lived there 4 years before we got married and bought our house. The tenant who replaced us is moving out in April and my grandparents live on the first floor (in their late 80s). I cannot stop thinking about selling our house and moving back up there. Would it be insanely selfish towards my kids to actually consider doing that? My mind is bouncing all over the place.

Pros: 
-I'd be where I love and walkable to EVERYTHING- beach, 10 parks, the public school is directly across the street, culture, arts, pubs, restaurants, community, farmers markets, dog parks, boutiques. Can hop on the train 1 block away and be anywhere in the city.
-We have about $100k equity in our house we could pull out if we sold it
-Our mortgage is $2800 and my grandparents would charge us $800 for rent, we'd be saving $2000 per month extra.
-Id get to be near my grandparents and support them as their health declines

Cons:
-We'd lose our 2.75% mortgage which seems so financially irresponsible to give up
-This is morbid but once my grandparents pass away, the building will be sold so we'd likely only get to be there for a few years unless we bought it after that (may be possible if we save that $2k per month). But would likely require another move.
-The public elementary school across the street is highly rated, but the high school district is horrible so we'd have to look at private, testing into a magnet school, or moving (but we'd likely already have to be out of grandparents house well before we hit high school).
-We have no idea what the interest rates or housing markets would be like if we had to buy again in a couple of years, we may have financially screwed ourselves by losing our mortgage rate.

Neutral:
-Older DD would have to switch schools, but our current district has Kindergarten in a different location than elementary school so even if we stayed, she would be at a "new" school next year though half of the kids in her class would be there. Seems like a lot to make her switch to a new district next year and then potentially again in a few more years.
-Dh and I both work fully remote forever so no commutes to consider
-We live right by my in laws which is so nice, but they're moving out of state for retirement. We'd be moving right by my grandparents and mom.
-Going from a 5bd/2ba to 2bed + tiny den, 1ba (apartment is SMALL). On one hand being on top of each other and kids sharing a room seems scary. On the other I just have the vast desire to purge stuff, sell one of our calls, live much more minimalist. The apartment does have both front and back porches and a VERY large fenced in yard and a playground across the street.

WWYD?

[/quote]

What strikes me is that you’re kind of treating these like special vacation days - are you really, truly doing that at home too? [/quote]

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