OP, to answer your question, I feel a deep sense of grieving. I love our house and the neighborhood we chose for our kids to grow up, and I love having the kids come back to visit. I always dreamed they would bring grandkids here. I don't want to move. But it's not a good place to age in place at all.

Anonymous wrote:For DH and I, our overarching theme we don't want to be living in a more expensive home than what our adult children can afford. Once they are settled, married and starting a family. It would just seem inside-down to us. In comparison to them, we don't want to own in an area of the better commute, the better school district, not when we don't need them.

That doesn’t make sense.

The older generation is the one that’s been working longer, so they naturally have the higher income/net worth. In my family, the older generations have had nicer, more comfortable homes than the younger, just starting out generations- except for the earlier immigrant generation.

My spouse and I knew that if we kept working hard and saving, we would eventually have a nice home, even though we knew it would take a long time. That’s just the way life works- it takes time to reap the benefits of hard work.

Anonymous wrote:For DH and I, our overarching theme we don't want to be living in a more expensive home than what our adult children can afford. Once they are settled, married and starting a family. It would just seem inside-down to us. In comparison to them, we don't want to own in an area of the better commute, the better school district, not when we don't need them.

In can’t imagine caring. This thought never crossed my mind. I bought the home I wanted and didn’t care what homes my parents live in. I have friends in 3m homes and am not jealous of those either.

The first we are talking is to declutter and get rid of everything we don’t need or want. We are half done and it already feels freeing

I actually don’t see the need to downsize. Both of my sets of grandparents lived in 4+ bedroom homes. It was nice that my parents had a room and I had a room when we visited. Grandparents massively simplified though. Every closet and every drawer was empty. The attic empty. There was room for a live in helper to live with them at the end. When they passed it wasn’t too much work to clear it out.

My in-laws moved to a 3 bedroom and it’s hard to visit. It’s not near hotels so we stay there. But there’s not room for us. We have 3 and dhs siblings have kids too. We’re all slammed into rooms and they expect the kids to sleep on the floor (spoiler: they don’t sleep).

I think if you downsize you need to stop hosting holidays and let your kids who live in large homes host.

Anonymous wrote:For DH and I, our overarching theme we don't want to be living in a more expensive home than what our adult children can afford. Once they are settled, married and starting a family. It would just seem inside-down to us. In comparison to them, we don't want to own in an area of the better commute, the better school district, not when we don't need them.

But those aren't the only qualities that make a house more expensive. Commute is subjective to where the person works.
A home can be more expensive because it has a gorgeous view, is walkable to bars and nightlife (which a young family won't need) etc.

Why would you have to downsize at 50 something? We are probably working until we are 70. If you are retiring, downsize. Otherwise, don't downsize until your kids are out of college and you are sure they won't be moving back in.

We downsized a few years after we became empty nesters. I wanted to be closer to our downtown so I could walk into town. It was a beautiful, very adult townhome but once we had grandchildren the home wasn’t working for us for many reasons so we upsized! It’s too big for us but our nine grandkids often visit and the house really works for us. If we lived far from our kids we wouldn’t have done it.

For DH and I, our overarching theme we don't want to be living in a more expensive home than what our adult children can afford. Once they are settled, married and starting a family. It would just seem inside-down to us. In comparison to them, we don't want to own in an area of the better commute, the better school district, not when we don't need them.

Anonymous wrote:My youngest just graduated from college but we have no plans to move. Our house was never HUGE but I want the kids to feel like there is space for them to stay whenever they want. I assume we will want something flatter eventually. Maybe we will move closer to the kids if they seem settled. No idea.

Us too. We’ll start to declutter and get affairs in order but no plan to get rid of the family home until we know where DC will be. We hope it’s here but if not we’d be prepared to move closer to where DC lands and help with kids (hopefully if we are lucky to have grandkids). Otherwise to just be near and have a relationship with DC. We are close.

Other than the high taxes is anything else driving you to feel like you have to move now?

Stay put for now. Think about when and where it’s right for you to move. Don’t feel compelled just because your youngest flew the nest.

Anonymous wrote:Well, I’m 41 and while our income is 350k, we’ve never had that, so in my view, what’s to miss?

I see real estate as an investment. I have zero emotional attachment to where I live. I do own where I live now, but if it didn’t suit my financial plan, I’d sell in a heartbeat and not look back.

The OP is obviously not one relevant to someone like you, who doesn’t have an emotional attachment to their home. Which is fine. But your views really aren’t on point to the op.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have a duplex in NWDC, one side is currently rented. The idea is for our only to move into it if/when they get married and have kids. If she doesn't want it, we're going to offer it up to any of my neices and nephews.

The idea is to age in place and help take care of grandkids.

Wow. Is your family really like that? If so, amazing. I would never in a million years want to share a duplex with my parents even though I have a good relationship with them.

I had the same attitude as this poster - until I had kids.
You have no idea how much you will come to value free childcare by someone you trust.
You have no idea how much you will appreciate that there are extended family easily available to your child(ren).
Raising kids in a city where there is no extended family, just your spouse, can feel lonely and hard - not just for you but also for the kids.
And no, the caribbean babysitter/nanny doesn't fill a child's emotional gap for extended family relationships.

Here’s what you could do: begin organizing and simplifying your life right now. Get rid of excess everything. What are you storing, for instance? Seasonal decor you really don’t like or use or feel like unpacking every year?

Saying all of this because I’ve experienced cleaning out my grandparents’ and parents’ lifetime homes and it’s work-intensive even if you end up hiring pros.

So I’m saying no to keeping anything we no longer need, going room by room, closet by closet and donating and reorganizing.

Do you have to downsize now? Our kids are in their 20’s but but we don’t plan to downsize anytime soon. Unless you have financial or other reasons why you need to now, can you wait?