A letter parents should send to their twentysomething or even 30 year old kids

A letter parents should send to their twentysomething or even 30-year-old kids

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A letter parents should send to their twentysomething or even 30-year-old kids

How does the real estate market keep levitating? Help from parents and grandparents! From the Wall Street Journal:

There’s a lot to love about Jennifer Gross’s new Phoenix home. The stucco four-bedroom with a clay-tiled roof has a three-car garage, overlooks a park and comes with a brick-bordered pool and a hot tub. It has arched entryways, floor-to-ceiling windows and a second-story balcony. The best feature: Her dad bought it for her.

After years of annual moves in search of lower rent, Gross had ended up with a roughly two-hour round-trip commute to work. Her father stepped in and offered to buy her a house. She gratefully accepted.

“I save and I can afford a couch but I can’t afford a house,” said Jennifer, adding that she never accepted financial help from her parents before—aside from staying on their cellphone plan. “What am I working for day after day?”

Buying a home has always been a milestone of financial independence. For some young Americans caught in the least affordable housing market in decades, it has become a family affair—strings attached.

Jennifer’s dad, Mark Gross, had a spending limit of $700,000, and one condition: She had to stay within 2 miles of him. The house they closed on last month was $625,000, and an 8-minute bike ride away. The mortgage is in her father’s name, and Jennifer pays him $2,200 a month to cover a portion of the payments. He bought her sister, Jessica Locati, a house nearby a few months earlier, fulfilling their mother’s dying wish that the family live close to each other.

“Face value, there is immediate judgment, my dad bought me a house,” Jennifer said. But, she noted, her family didn’t grow up wealthy. The older generations saved and invested well, and are now in a position to help the younger generation. She recalls the emotional scene from “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” in which the father, who owns a diner, buys his daughter the house next door as a wedding gift.

“This is the pinnacle of every sacrifice each generation has made to pay it forward to the next,” Jennifer said.

Link to WSJ unlocked article

A letter parents should send to their twentysomething or even 30 year old kids

I recently did a condo/townhouse showing Lexington MA, when I showed them the basement, they were excited, “Finally,” they said, “This is large enough that we can tell Billy, to move his sporting equipment out of our garage.”

Young adults, when they finally move-out of their parents home for their first apartment or condo, always leave items behind for mom and dad to store. Hey, I even did it back when I was in my twenties, and most of the items are still at my  parents house decades later. No, I’m going to tell you how many decades.

Today, I’m going to help parents out with a sample letter they should send their kids, like the one my my mom sent to me many moons ago

Dear person in their twenties, thirties, or forties,

It is wonderful that you finally got a job and were able to move out of your folk’s place a mere________ years after you graduated from college. I know it is a big scary world out there and it is hard to move away for someone in their 40’s. Just think of it as a new beginning.

Your parents love you, we always have and we would do almost anything for you and we are very proud of you.

There is one thing that you need to know. We are not being honest with you about something. We have kept a secret from you all these years, and it has nothing to do with Auntie Sue or that one incident a few years back at the amusement park. We know you did not do that on purpose, and fires do happen.

We want to tell you that we are very tired of the boxes and storage bins in the basement and the bike, sports equipment, and rollerblades in the garage. We understand that you also regret having purchased that tacky piece of furniture that you bought when you were finally accepted to Bunker Hill college but left it stored in the basement We hate it too, and yes you’re always welcome to move back, even though we had the locks changed and we know the secret about the back door.

Even though we love you and would do almost anything for you we don’t want to provide storage for your stuff anymore.  We would like to use our basements and garages and attic for something else, like finally storing way the Christmas tree ornaments that are in the living-room. We have our own stuff that needs to be stored and most of our closets are overflowing and your dad is in his 90’s and shouldn’t being using the ladder to find his golf hat on the top shelf of the closet.

It would be heavenly to be able to walk to the washer without tripping over something and honestly, the furnace and water heater have always wanted a room of their own, they watch and wait silently as the stuff piles up around them.   The last time we had a repair man here he couldn’t even find the furnace, I guess he wasn’t much of a repair man.  I never saw him leave the house, he may still be down in the basement looking for the furnace, I guess we don’t know for sure, but hope not because they charge by the hour.

Please come over for dinner tonight.  We promise to cook something you really like and buy a couple of bottles of wine, or maybe you would enjoy a beer instead. Please bring a friend or significant other and a moving van. We will even front you the cash so that you can rent it (the van, not your date). After dinner kindly remove your stuff. Don’t make me have to write this twice.  I may be old but I am still your mother and even though you are bigger than I am I can still kick your butt, or at the very least make you feel guilty.

Thanks, your loving mother

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