[fintstone]

Originally Posted by look 171

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Start thinking about a retirement home. Single story, largish garage and yard near the foothills. Gut it and make it the way I want. Rent my current home out and let kids take care of it. The only way to learn about rentals is to jump in and deal with it. Hopefully it wouldn't burn them out.
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Started doing this myself...but can't bring myself to sell the current house (that we love...but not where we want to live). We bought a new home in another state is slightly smaller and although largely redone now, just not as comfortable. We already had a smaller vacation house that we like in yet another state in preparation for our planned retirement last year, but decided to work one more year (2020). Now I am stuck with three houses and accompanying taxes, insurance, utilities, etc. (as I have to stay in the current one to work). Pretty stupid....yes, I know. I have no time for the vacation house or the new one that we bought last year to move to when I retired...and my wife is adamant abut not renting either out (to someone that might trash them).

I have decided that I am not ready to give up enough of my stuff to fit in the new house and would have to buy another, larger one (in one of the two locations) to keep everything (then I could sell or rent the one in that location and my current house). Of course, I never wanted to live in either place during the winter...when there are so many other places that are warmer and dryer (both are closer to children/living parents to satisfy wife who has followed me around almost 45 years). It is just too difficult to make such long term decisions on how to spend the remainder of one's life that I am tempted to just keep working and postpone doing anything. Especially if this teleworking trend becomes more prevalent. First world decisions are so much harder than when I could barely feed myself.

The car guy thread was interesting in this respect...as so much of my housing "needs" are based on cars, places to store and work on them, and tons of parts that I store. I can rarely find the time to drive or work on the air-cooled cars these days an assumed I would when I retired. I am not sure if I still have the need to do so...and the prices of cars is to the point that I will never use the extra doors, bumpers, wheels, seats, etc. that I have accumulated to redo one (my cars are done/complete). The stripped, but rust free midyear targa that no one thought worth restoring 15 years ago are now rare and few.