<p>calmom - haven’t heard any of my Ca. friends, or any of the Ca. posters here, whine about capital gains tax when you sell your little gold mines. Because most of you will be well above the $250/500K gain limit for no tax, yes? Are Cal boomers madly strategizing what to do tax-wise - sort of like the way we obsessively stategize here wrt every wrinkle of college admissions process - or are they just copacetic to take the money and run? Or are there no strategies anyway?</p>
<p>When H and I left Ca, our home sold for just under $500K. Recently brought $1.3m to most recent owner. We try not to cry over the spilt milk, but our beloved Ca. friends make sure we are up-to-date on such info.</p>
<p>OK…Beaumont is a small community east of LA, off the 10 Fwy, going toward the southern desert/Palm Springs. It is at the eastern split of the 10 & 60 freeways…nothing exciting.</p>
<p>jmmom, most people I know aren’t talking about their homes appreciating. These people are around 50 years old.
I think many are going to stay in their homes until they die.
Many are worried about their kids. How are they going to live here?
The people who are excited are the ones who own multiple properties. Even these people don’t talk much.</p>
<p>dstark - Yes, my close friend’s D (echo boomer out of college ca. 3 years now) is constantly trying to figure out how she will EVER buy a home (SF Bay area). Really can’t even imagine living anywhere else. It’s a dilemma. I’m tempted to try to persuade her that there is life outside of Ca. but I’m not sure she would ever believe that and it’s a shame that it should even be an issue.</p>
<p>I think the bay area is soo overrated. Water too cold to swim in–housing and traffic, the politics–they can keep it. But my dream would be a 1700’s home in Litchfield, CT so I’m not the norm.</p>
<p>Barrons, parts of the Bay Area are really nice. The politics are similar to Madison.
I have to say, the homes of Litchfield look very nice. The cost of living is pretty high in CT, isn’t it?</p>
<p>Heck, when all the baby boomers from the blue states retire to the red states the red states will become…blue states.</p>
<p>I too worry about all of us of a “certain age” retiring and cashing out at the same time. I go back and forth between trying to figure out how we can stay in our present home (definitely NOT a home for elderly people - isolated, 3 acres of constant maintenance, and tri-level so lots of steps) and thinking we should rush out and buy a potential retirement home NOW.</p>
<p>I watched my parents sit in their house, hesitant to move, hesitant not to move, until they were forced to sell and move due to health reasons. I would very much like to avoid that scenario — but the question is, at what point do you jump ship?</p>
<p>One more thought: How many of you are waiting to see where your kids end up? I am keeping my fingers crossed that at least one of my kids will end up in Oregon.</p>
<p>Definitely want to know where my kids end up.
Was in Santa Rosa, Ca. today. I could definitely retire there.
I don’t know how these numbers are calculated but Santa Rosa is cheaper to live in than San Diego. <a href=“http://www.salary.com%5B/url%5D”>www.salary.com</a>
Click on Cost-of-living wizard in the middle of the page.</p>
<p>Carolyn, I keep thinking I should buy a retirement home now. It’s been 5 years and still no home. Now, homes are $100000 to 250000 more. I may end up like your parents.
Next time you are in the Bay Area check out Santa Rosa, Sonoma and Napa.</p>
<p>One nifty way to reduce the capital gains taxes on your Calif RE…</p>
<p>(1) move out of your home and rent it out. You can either rent a new place yourselves or you can pull equity out of the house to buy a smaller/cheaper house. Check w/ accountant because new rules are now in place, but you’ll need to rent it for sufficient # of years to qualify it as ‘held for investment.’</p>
<p>(2) sell property. Roll proceeds into new property in a tax deferred 1031 exchange. Rent this property out and live off the rental income. Or someday, move into it as a personal residence.</p>
<p>Curious where the children will settle when they are adults…but, not “waiting” before mobilizing & planning for our permanent retirement location. Home will always be either at their place or ours…wherever it may be. We have joked with them about downsizing from a 4 bedroom to a 2+den…less housekeeping for me…so first come, first serve! ;)</p>
<p>It is interesting how one factors in where the kids are when determining where to live. My in-laws chose to relocate from Long Island to southern Illinois b/c one child moved there from Chicago, another lives in LA, and we live on the East Coast.</p>
<p>S has stated he’ll stay in SoCal after graduating in June; when he says he’s going “home,” that means LA. Who knows where D will end up, but I have the feeling it’ll be also in CA.</p>
<p>H jokes that we should downsize to either a sailboat (and live in the harbor when not traveling) or a vehicle like the old Chinook (and work from there while traveling). I like to travel but prefer to have a home base while doing so. All of my closest family members are in Southeast Asia, so that’s one possibility way off in the future. No nursing homes there! And the kids enjoy visiting there as well since the cousins closest in age to them live there.</p>
<p>I can tell you that renting a house in the Alameda, Oakland area seems like a deal to me. My brother rents a house that would probably sell for at least $600K–it’s easy to tell because he lives on Alameda Island and the houses are very similar so the specs do hold. He rents at about $2000 a month-a 3-1/2 BR with 2 Baths, FR, LR, DR and galley kitchen. The morgage and fees would run well over $3000. He does lose in appreciation, however. He likes the area, lots of amenities, convenient location, can take the BArt or ferry to San Francisco easily, schools not bad on the island either. Now this is all second hand from little brother.</p>
<p>I bought a house that was not meant to be an investment which really broke all of the rules of making money on houses. It is by far the biggest house in the neighborhood, short on amenities, but big on size, school district is good but not hot, but nothing around here is that great anyways. Convenient to a number of good private schools that are difficult to get in. But I bought the house to be a home for us and not as an investment. We did this each time, always constrained terribly by cost but since the market went nuts each time, we really made out even though we sold the houses rather worse for wear when we were done with them. The one in Westchester county went for an obscene amount, in my opinion, since the school district was lousy, but I hear that whole area has now gotten hot and has gone up in value even more.</p>
<p>Dstark, I know the Santa Rosa area well. My husband has relatives there and we have visited many times over the years. The area has grown quite a bit in that time but still is attractive. I know my husband’s aunt and uncle are very active in community events like the symphony and theater so there is a decent amount of culture in the immediate area as well.</p>
<p>The one area in CA that we found really appealing was La Jolla. Fortunately, real estate prices in the Boston area, especially in our town, are continuing to go up, so we could move pretty much any where and still afford a house (maybe not exactly like the one we present have, but at least afford one). It’s even hard to find a condo for under $1M in our town. We’re just keeping our fingers crossed since we’re living in our nest egg.</p>
<p>The problem with La Jolla (which is darling) is what surrounds it. There is gridlock practically from Mexico to LA these days on the fwy. SD has grown so exponentially that the infrastructure is a mess. Way too much traffic!</p>
<p>Littlemother - have you looked at RE prices in La Jolla? I wouldn’t think you’d find them any more attractive than your Boston area values. SBMom? </p>
<p>Close friend of mine lives in San Diego but way up in the extreme north of a very spread out city, chose area for good schools vis-a-vis reasonable re prices. Used to be good value imo. Now around $500K for cookie cutter small houses (1350sf) on small lots, not too well built (H and I always joke that half of house seems made of cardboard - you wouldn’t want to lean too hard on a wall or closet door).</p>
:o :eek:</p>