The Adventure: Buying a Multigenerational Home
Multigenerational homes are growing in demand as the Greatest Generation and early Baby Boomer generation begin to require assistance to continue living quality lives. As a Realtor in the Lamorinda Area of the Bay Area, I wanted to share my experience with others making the transition to a multigenerational home or see that it might be in their future. I hope my failures and successes help you avoid the potential landmines that could damage a family.
Part II – Finding A Home
When my wife and I bought our first place, we had no kids, were 20 years younger than the median age of our neighborhood, and were one of two households on our street not retired. Welcome to Moraga Country Club. My mom lived three blocks away by car, but if I took the walking path she was a mere 150 yards. For 16 years, my family slept assured that in a moment’s notice I could open any pickle jar or divide any Costco mega box of whatever.
Now the clock was ticking. Sure, my older-older sister could easily house my mom, but her and her husband had their eye on retirement and had broken ground on a second home in Costa Rica. They would need to be gone for weeks at a time so this could not work for long.
Part one came off as planned. Selling my home was the easy part. I put my money where my mouth had been and listed low and hoped to get multiple offers. We did. Closed on time and put a lot of our stuff and all of mom’s stuff in Moraga Storage. Now, all we needed to do was to find what we thought would be easy, a home with an ADU or in-law’s unit.
Well yeah, why not? My mom still drove, my wife drove, hell…I’d been driving myself to school since I was 14! We would just be independent people going about our own business sharing a parcel number. Even my family figured that my mom would be visiting her sisters in Mt. View or best friend in Pleasanton all the time. At very minimum, mom would come and go as she pleased spending most of her day at my sister’s house and going to 24 Hour Fitness.
Things were going almost exactly as planned, then about 6 months into the home search Murphy’s Law reared its ugly head. My mom, was trying to get out of my sister’s car to grab the mail…the car was still moving…my mom fell and broke her hip. Yeah, we laugh about it now, telling her she watched too many Hawaii Five-0 and Mannix episodes where people jumped from cars all the time, but on that morning…not so funny.
In my mind, I remembered an old axiom that a broken hip was the first nail in a person’s coffin. It always ushered in a marked decline in health. Well, my mom was brought to San Ramon Regional Medical Center at 10:30 AM for a hip replacement and was walking again by 10:00 PM. To my surprise, having a wife and brother in health care does have its upsides. Being informed that the broken hip was probably more of a mental capacity indication than a physical ability issue was interesting…being constantly told I’m cruising for diabetes and clogged arteries are just nice extras. Ultimately, my brother pulled my mom’s driving privilege based on her diminished pedal control. I did not realize how much that would impact our living situation.
So, in-law’s quarters or au pair units are not as common as one would think. Well, OK, if we had doubled our budget we could find something, but my goal was to find the ideal house. One that would be manageable for my wife and I when we are empty nesters. Add the “no steps to entry” and walk in shower in the guest bath and I was lucky to see eight homes a month.
We got desperate, we offered on three homes that could have worked or killed me. One was way, no waaay above our budget, as in,” just because the bank will lend you the money, doesn’t mean you should take it.” Another was way too small, but we convinced ourselves that the view was awesome and we could add on! Lastly, we got into a draining negotiation and I wasn’t up to the counter. I felt I had gone far enough and I wasn’t going any further…ha! What’s that saying about being penny wise?
Finally, we found our little ugly duckling. Loved from the day it was built by a couple who raised a family in it. My associate and “used-to-be” close friend in the office thought I was crazy, but I knew I’d grow to love our cozy little money pit as much as the previous owner. Now that we’ve lived a few memories in the place, I only sing the praises of our selection.
Moraga Country Club does offer a lifestyle that is hard to match anywhere. As an example, I kept a private cart so I would be able to jump out for a quick 8-10 holes before dinner or even better play the back nine and watch Miramonte baseball games from the 16th green. On less windy evenings you can hear the announcer clear as day.
The Campolindo neighborhood has a lot of benefits that only shine through when you think about the small things. Kids walking to high school, 5-10 minute shorter trips to the freeway, and easy access to the Lafayette Reservoir just being a few. Living in both areas has been a blessing.
Part V - Mom Likes to Pay Her Own Bills
Part VI – I’ll Just Stay Home and Watch TV…
