Quote:
Originally Posted by Truenorth00
The pensions and home values are nice. But our system was supposed to set up to do aging in place. And we really haven't done that. In about a decade that hole is going to become a lot more obvious. Also, a big part of aging in place, is having your kids and grandkids nearby. We've mostly failed at that.
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We have? Or the very same demographic of seniors whose children cannot afford to live near them have?
As far as I can see, we don't have an aging in place problem - we have a seniors willing to vacate their homes to allow aging in place problem.
My uncle provides a counterexample. He sold his west side Vancouver home and bought a 2BR condo, netting about $800k after buying the condo and various closing costs. He gave both of his children $400k to buy their first homes, and they both bought townhouses with their families. A few years later both of them had grandchildren that they could afford to raise in homes with sufficient space. I guess his other option is that he could have shuffled around the rest of his days in a home with 4 empty bedrooms while asking his renter children at family dinners when they were to give him grandchildren.
It's not like Vancouver lacks for downsizing options for people who have the means. Even for seniors who are unwilling to downsize [read: selfish], they can borrow against their home to build a laneway suite and stuff their children and their growing families in those while they lord over the 2,000 ft2 main house.