We live in a great walkable neighborhood with wonderful schools and very high property taxes that are likely going even higher soon. DS has expressed interest in the house but not sure when or if his current GF would think that is a good idea. I have already started trying to get DH to buy into the idea that we may not stay forever but it will take a LONG time to get him to agree to move. We have a DD20 so I have at least 6 years to work on him, I think, and it will take that long. Retirement is 8-9 years away though so I am probably on target.
My H and I are drastically downsizing when D heads to college this fall. In fact, we’ll be moving cross country from the Bay Area to Boston for work shortly after we move her into her dorms.
We are taking very little with us. After a number of moves over the years, we’ve realized that we’d rather have experiences than ‘stuff’. Stuff just ties you down. We’re taking our bed, a coffee table and some end tables, personal items and clothing. Everything else will be sold or donated. It’s very freeing! We will of course buy a few things to furnish our new place but won’t need a lot.
On that note, if anyone can recommend a full service cross country mover for small loads, I’d appreciate it!
I used a company called MiniMoves to ship my mother’s dining room table and chairs from Chicago to San Diego and was completely satisfied with their service. They disassembled the table at pickup and reassembled it at delivery. The only caveat is that they have to group together small loads to fill their moving trucks so you may have a delay along the way. It wasn’t cheap but better than the major companies would have charged.
@marilyn thanks so much for the suggestion! I’ll check them out now.
Well, we took the first step yesterday. Our plan, I think, is to sell the house and rent in NYC. Our frame of reference for apartments are those of our kids and close friends, and how an apartment is laid out is more important to us than the actual square footage. So, even though our plan is to rent, not buy, we started checking out open houses for apartment sales. Unlike suburban open houses, these are usually available for about a 90 minute window, so we limited ourself to a specific geographic area and saw 4 apartments yesterday. We know we want 2 BR, 1.5-2 baths and lots of light. What I learned is that there are so many variations on that and we do not want a place where all the bedrooms are directly over the living space. We also need light and a kitchen that has more than 24" of counter space. Rentals will clearly be more limited and we can’t even begin to look for those until we are ready to move, but I think legwork in advance will allow us to look more critically at what is available when we’re ready.
However, as we left a small, dark, 2BR apartment in a building where the hallways smelled, my H noted that the asking price was close to what we think we can get for our 6BR, 4.5 B suburban home. Ah, life in the big city…glad we’re not buying.
NYC is crazy expensive, but there’s no place else like it! I’m leaving in five minutes to go into the City today to meet old HS friends for a museum visit and leisurely lunch.
@VeryHappy, exactly! And with all 3 of my kids living there, I want to be able to hop on a train and meet them for dinner and then get home with fighting traffic on bridges and parkways.
I always thought that we would rent (or buy) in NYC when we were ready to downsize. But there is no way that I could afford it now. Our house is worth at least double what we paid for it, but we couldn’t get anything nice that’s convenient to public transportation in the city. I think if we want to downsize we’ll end up in one of the many apartment towers that are springing up around MetroNorth station stops. Even where we live now we can walk to the train and be in Grand Central in about 45 minutes total. That’s not too bad.
@runnersmom - I would love to do what you are doing! Good luck and enjoy!