Good point!
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True, but our family finds it much easier to just to stay in a hotel if the house is too crowded. But then again we donāt have a big familyā¦
A bit of an anecdote about 55 and over communities. We have some friends who moved to a 55+ gated condo community right after they turned 55 and were eligible. They loved it and they liked that it was low maintenance. Well, they were the youngest people in their area of the community and several of their neighbors were widows. Well the husband is quite fit (and according to their neighbors, good looking) for his age, so a lot of their single and older neighbors would constantly be asking him for help with stuff. For example: āSteve (not his real name), my kitchen light went out.ā āSteve, I need you to change my porch light.ā Oh, the ladies loved asking Steve for help and they would always send him home with leftovers afterwards. My husband would always give him a hard time by mimicking the older ladies asking him for helpā¦ They loved living there, but moved to Arizona because it was cheaper.
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I strongly prefer to stay in a hotelā¦
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You donāt have to live in a 55+ community for that to happen. Both FIL and MIL commented on it often in the community heās lived in for decades. Of course, MIL would say, āAll the Old Bitties love him and make excuses for him to come over,ā and FIL would say, āThe old ladies need help, so I do what I can. No one ever taught them to do anything!ā
It was cute to watch TBH.
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I stayed at a hotel when we visited my patents and my husbandās parents, I think once you have more than one kid, itās nice to have our own place even when visiting.
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We got new neighbors. Just retired to our area. They decided to buy this house because it was big enough for all of their children to gather. Another neighbor and us commented that our houses are big enough but the kids canāt find time to get here.
When we bought this house, our youngest had just gone to college and both kids were in college. We thought it was important for them to each have a room and each spent a summer here. But nowā¦
The house is great with a main floor bedroom. But we have no aspirations that the kids are going to spend time here.
My daughter just bought a townhome. 4 stories. She wants to host Christmas. I live in fear of the 3 octogenarians navigating the large city and the steep steps at this point. My mom fell in the shower at my sons this past year. He lives in a typical 2 story colonial in the suburbs where you can pull right up to the front door.
I really donāt know the answer. I almost think you need a family sized house, an empty nester house, an easy to navigate house and then assisted living house. Itās very difficult, this aging.
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Does the townhome have an elevator? Our former home was multi-level and the elevator was a necessity for us for months at a time on several occasions. The rest of the time it was a great convenience.
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We donāt have an elevator.
I would not advise to buying a house of a certain size just to fit everyone for 3-8 days a year. In the end it is not worth it. My in-laws had a house that was like 1600-1700 sq ft forever. Two of three children moved out my wife being one. My SIL is younger by 11 years. After two of the kids moved out they sold and bought a bigger house like 2700 sq ft. Just so much wasted space. Extra property taxes. They should have just moved to a ranch townhome. That is what they eventually did anyways.
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My wife and I will be in serious house searching mode this fall (after D22 leaves for college). Weāve been monitoring homes for sale in several areas using Zillow. The problem we are having is finding smaller homes that arenāt dated and have what we are looking for. Weāre now considering building new to get what we want in a smaller footprint, but that really pushes out or time frame.
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Sometimes it seems like half the people on this thread have downsized to houses that are bigger than our current house. I donāt think weāll downsize until the upkeep of our small yard and/or the stairs get to be too difficult. Thereās no easy way to make it wheelchair friendly thatās for sure!
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I saw an episode of This Old House where where a modular/pre-fab (is that the same thing?) was built mostly indoors, delivered to the site and put together.
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This is what we ended up doing. The building project has been in progress since we bought the property nearly two years ago. Weād hoped to buy and do a minor remodel, but it just wasnāt going to work. Our builder expects to be finished in about two months; my guess is three months. 
A big factor in our decision to build was the total lack of accessible houses. No one seems to understand the concepts of universal design. After we fired our architect, I designed our new house and our builder had a draftsman put it into construction plan form. I made sure weād have 36" wide doors, a 5 ft. turning radius where needed, no steps, zero-entry showers, grab bars in the showers and by some toilets, varying counter heights (tall for H, short for me) in the kitchen as well as in the bathrooms, and other features that will make life easier for us now and in the future. I only wish I could have persuaded H to do the same thing in about 3/4 of the sq. ft.
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Yes
Well and what if the parents want to visit the kids? H has a co worker who retired a couple of years ago and they kept their big house for when the kids and grandkids come to visit. Well, it turns out that since he and his wife are retired, they go visit the kids and grandkids. Their kids work full time and the grandkids are in school, much easier for the retired parents to travel
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Yes, retired people have the time. And, in many cases, the $$$ to travel to the kids.
I remember my 20s and 30s. I had zero time and zero money to travel āhomeā whenever I wanted to.
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Thatās exactly how things are turning out for us. We go to the kids, they very rarely come to our home.
This is quite distressing to my mil, for her the kids either lived in her town or she expected us to come to her.
Things feel quite different with my kids. Maybe itās a different generation but my kids are not spending their vacation time visiting family, which is what my husband and I were expected to do. Our family is also quite spread out.
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Exactly the same here. But, covid put a twist in our traveling plans and they came to visit us. We are just about back to normal now.
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@Silpat ,
You will be very glad to have planned ahead. I regret not doing a zero entry shower when we remodeled our bathroom. We are now looking at redoing it or selling.
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This week, Iāve been reminded why I am not a fan of condos. The waterfront trail we walk on goes by a very nice, very upscale water-facing condo building where condos go forā¦ let me guessā¦ 3-4 million bucks. Or maybe even more. Every evening we walked by the building, there was a guy smoking a very stinky cigar on one of the patios. The horrible stench wafted way beyond that patio! I donāt think I would have been able to enjoy my balcony or patio if this guy was my neighbor. Ugh.
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