<p>Would it be easier to just drain the pool until you decide to sell it? That way you wouldn’t have to maintain it. Though I don’t know if people actually do that. It does sound like the right decision to sell the house at some point, painful as it might be. Think of all the free time and money you’ll have when you’re not spending it on the house! But at least you aren’t actually moving away, you are just moving into town. I think that’s really difficult for some people, because they leave all their friends and entire community, thinking they will reestablish new ties elsewhere, and they can’t.</p>
<p>I think we have a serious attachment to our house itself, not just the area. My husband has spent so much time fixing up the yard, and we have an amazing view. From every window in our house, we look outside and it is beautiful. It makes me feel happy and lucky to have that view. But it’s so maintenance heavy (with us/mostly my husband) fixing and working on everything, and too expensive. It sucks our time and money away, and surely delays our retirement. But so many stairs, hills, it’s not a place to age. Just can’t leave. Yet.</p>
<p>If you empty a pool of water, the pool floats. The pool can come out of the ground. You can fill the pool with dirt …but you have to drill holes into the pool so water can escape and you have to disclose this to any potential buyers.</p>
<p>When I was selling my house, I debated redoing my pool or filling it in with dirt. I just decided to get quotes and let the buyer decide. I was told nobody would want the pool but it turned out the buyers did want the pool. </p>
<p>Maybe draining the pool isn’t such a good idea then. I wonder, though, if there’s some sort of additive that will maintain the pool for a long time with little work to be done on it. We once had a pool, and we just put a pool cover on it for several months out of the year. Kind of gross when we took it off, but it cleared up pretty quickly.</p>
<p>Yes, I live in the suburbs, dstark, but not too far out of town. Everything is pretty accessible, though not within walking distance, except for parks and grocery stores. It would be nice to live in a place that is completely walkable.</p>
<p>My sister is having the same issue. She gets all anxiety ridden and all confused. In her heart she knew she wouldn’t be able take care of the house because it’s so old.</p>
<p>We have been debating this for years. We really have to decide since it affects so many financial decisions like the roof and remodeling expenses. We originally thought we woud sell and move when DD was sophomore in college. That was 6 years ago in the depth of the recession. Now we just like our neighborhood and friends, don’t know what we would do to re-establish ourselves somewhere else. So now we are talking about staying here longer even though it is much more house than we need. That changes what we put into it and our financial plan. We never planned to really pay it off. We were going to sell it so the last refinance was not done to reduce the time period but improve our cash flow for college expenses. Sigh, now to re-do all the math and change things. </p>
<p>I’m thinking the solution to all of us who have indecision about selling our too costly houses, is to stay there and rent part of it out to someone. And that someone would do all the maintenance and care for it, so we can go do fun things. And they would be invisible, so we wouldn’t feel like our privacy is at risk. Is that possible?</p>
No, not unless you have a completely separate apartment in your house with its own bathroom and kitchen and laundry.</p>
<p>Renting is not for the feint of heart. I was just reading an article about a couple who hired a live-in nanny, after a month she stopped working, and they can’t get her out even though they fired her. They are going to have to get a lawyer and evict, and it could take months.</p>
<p>We’ll have the house paid off in another couple of years and that will free up a lot of cash flow, but we’d still be better off selling.</p>
<p>We’ve thought of moving and selling, and may do so. But our house is not large by standards here (1900 sq ft), and we need the room for when the kids visit. Plus, we are 10 years away from retirement, at least, if we act conservatively and follow financial advisors. I’d like to chuck it all and live in a travel trailer sometimes!</p>
<p>Many many years ago, my ex and I were landlords on a place. We probably got half of the rent we were owed, people moved out without notice and went off the grid, etc. I told my ex that we could leave it empty or sell it, but I’d rather burn it to the ground than rent it again. </p>
<p>Some states do have very strong eviction laws - for example in WI on winter months. My parents were very careful on renters - once in a while they had a bad experience (like a guy leaving the place a bit of a mess, but threatening to break out windows etc if he didn’t receive his full security deposit back). Get those people out of your life ASAP! </p>
<p>The nanny stopping work and then not moving out - now that is terrible because she has access to those people’s home! Maybe they can move her stuff to a place where they pay a month and change their locks! </p>
<p>My uncle owned some apts in California and he didn’t let people stiff him on rent! He talked and acted tough and packed…</p>
<p>If you know you are staying in your area, and want to continue to own - by the time you pay to ‘down size’…</p>
<p>If we retire and want to move, it will be quite an effort as well as a bit emotional - </p>
<p>It is costly to move. If your place is not one of the cheaper places in the neighborhood, it may be possible to downsize and still live in the neighborhood. Some people are attached to their homes and dont want to give them up. </p>
<p>There are people with small separate guest homes or live ins with separate entrances. They can rent these out.</p>
<p>A friend is renting out a floor thru airbnb. No kitchen to the renters. The place is in SF so it is in demand. I am not sure why she is doing this. I think she has enough money but maybe renting allows her to keep her lifestyle going.</p>
<p>I agree with those that dont like people in their homes .</p>
<p>As TempeMom said, draining the pool would irreparably damage it, and it definitely would not “float” out of the ground if drained (it’s poured concrete with a Pebble-Tec finish). We have no desire to maintain something we have no use for even if there were some way to do it with little effort/cost . We live in a very desirable family neighborhood, and our house and yard are in mint condition. We do not count the resale value of our house (net of the new place) in our retirement number, but there will be some serious monetizing from the sale. No matter how we look at it, it only makes financial sense to plan for a move but, as busdriver points out, we are only re-locating to another part of the valley, so I’m really just dealing with timing and some personal grief – at aging mostly. Perhaps I’m subconsciously clinging to this house as a remnant of my parenting “youth,” who knows?</p>
<p>We did consider keeping the house as a rental but, as @notrichenough posted, renting is not for the faint of heart and we want no strings. So, I’m taking one day at a time, enjoying what we have now, and trying to look forward to this next phase as a new adventure.</p>
She better make sure she doesn’t rent for more than 30 days at a time. There was an airbnb thing that made the news recently where some guy rented an airbnb place for six weeks, declared himself a tenant, and stopped paying, and now he has to be evicted through the legal system.</p>
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Rentals will be funding our retirement… it’s all in how you pick your tenants. DW has a system that has served us well, we have had almost no problems in 20+ years. Knock on wood. </p>
<p>@notrichenough, don’t get me wrong, I love landlords, since if my wife lets me, I hope to rent after we retire. If I were really handy, and weren’t a soft touch for a sob story, I’d consider being a landlord. It’s just not my strong suit. </p>
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