Quote:
Originally Posted by supafamous
Yes? Both my parents and in-laws own paid off detached houses in East Van and both have just enough to live on at the moment but both houses are WAY more house than they need but they won't downsize for a variety of reasons:
1. My dad is very attached to the property - it's been in the family for nearly 50 years and the current house was one we built in the 90s (he helped build it too). He also is a busybody handy man so works in his garage all the time, built his own deck, does his own renovation work etc. A condo would take that all away from him despite my mom's strong desire to downsize and pass down some of the money to her two kids sooner rather than later (thanks mom!)
2. It's hard to downsize and stay in the same neighborhood and staying in the same area when you're old is really valuable - learning new routines can be really hard. Even remembering directions to the store become a challenge with age - they become lost much more easily.
3. My MIL (and FIL) aren't financially literate and see a house as the only safe and effective way to pass money down to the kids. They want to hang on to it as long as they can so it's worth as much as possible when they die. They're not wrong due to this market even if I think they could dump it into the stock market or even GICs. With the rezoning that's happening they're even more right.
4. Jesus Fucking Christ they have a lot of junk! 40-50 years of accumulation has meant that crawling out of all that shit will take a couple years and it's a problem no one wants to face. I'm sure there's some stuff in there of value (real money and sentimental) but I'm not sure I wouldn't just get a couple of college kids to haul it all away to the dump just to clear the house out vs taking a month off work sorting through it.
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This is my parents. I don't see them ever leaving their house unless they become incapable of living on their own. They have deep roots in the area, the house was built by my Grandpa in the 70's, and he sold it to my parents and we moved into it in the 90's.
My dad is like me, he likes to constantly putz around on projects around the house, he's not a "content to do nothing" kind of guy. He could never be happy without proper shop space.
Plus they need the extra space/spare rooms for us when we come over for visits.
Fortunately for them they're OK with money, they're both pensioners, and had additional savings on top of that.