- Tom BrezsnyThe Story of Bob and Cathy Part 1
Picking up the thread…we’ve been blessed with an opportunity to eavesdrop on a real life situation courtesy of Bob and Cathy (a local couple whose names have been changed to protect the innocent). They’ve graciously agreed to be the poster-couple for the huge swathe of aging baby-boomers trying to figure out what comes next and what’s going to work for the last third of their lives.
We’ve been wondering why the real estate market has had such low inventory and it’s my contention that the lack of supply reflects the difficulty boomers are having when it comes to embracing change and navigating the challenges of trying to sell and buy a home in the same marketplace at the same time.
Bob and Cathy have owned their 4br, 3.5ba, 3,500 sq ft home on the non-ocean side of Hwy 1 for more than twenty-five years. Their kids are grown and they’re planning to retire (any year now). They’ve done well and have some savings but they’d also like to pull equity out of their house and use it to travel.
At their age, it doesn’t seem smart to have so much money tied up in their home. Once they retire they might not have enough income to qualify for an equity line, if there’s an emergency. They’ve heard about reverse mortgages but are wary of them.
After a lifetime of accumulating stuff (and even more stuff), they want more life experiences instead, especially while they’re still healthy and have the energy to go on interesting travel adventures. Otherwise, why did they work all those years?
They think they’d like to sell their current place and buy a smaller, cheaper home near the beach. Cathy has bad knees and the notion of a single story house is appealing. (As an article in the New York Times recently said: Growing numbers of Americans are outliving their joints!) Both have watched their elderly parents struggle with health issues and both are mindful of the greater challenges that lie ahead, another twenty years down the road, (if they are fortunate to live that long).
Sounds simple doesn’t it? It ought to be easy to sell a bigger, more expensive house and buy a smaller one, but Bob and Cathy are finding out that it isn’t. They’ve discovered that there’s no ready-made script they can read in advance.
As Bob says: “Part of what we’re struggling with is the enormity of the change we’re considering. It’s not just about the money questions. When you change your home, you change everything and that’s not easy to do at our age”.
Next Week: More of the story
