Why city dwellers are seeking out second homes in the suburbs

[Pedestrian]

By Sara Clemence
July 18

Kylie Pak, the 42-year-old owner of real estate investing company RedBrick Properties, loves living in Richmond. She and her husband eat out at restaurants most nights, and thrive on the youthful energy around Virginia Commonwealth University.

Every other week, they escape to their second home — not at the beach or deep in the countryside, but 30 minutes away, in the bedroom community of Midlothian.

It’s an arrangement that’s allowed the blended family to have the best of both types of living, Pak says. She and her husband reside in the suburbs on the weeks they have their kids.

“Our children attend wonderful schools in the suburbs and play basketball in the cul-de-sac,” she says, “without us having to completely give up the convenience and culture of the city.”

It used to seem like an either or choice: Live in the city or decamp to the suburbs. If you chose the urban experience, you might eventually — if you could afford it — escape from the noise and crowds by buying a house at the beach or in the countryside.

But a number of city dwellers are instead seeking out second homes in the suburbs. Though nobody appears to be keeping statistics of how many people are doing it, some industry insiders say it’s increasingly common — and not just in megacities such as New York and Los Angeles, but also Chicago, Seattle and even smaller centers.

“There’s a lot of people that really like to be close to work but then come out to the burbs just to get a little bit of relaxation,” says Dawn McKenna, founder of the Dawn McKenna Group, a Chicago-area real estate agency. “Where you can inhale and exhale — but you don’t want to spend too much time because you want to get back with the action.”

Families who are straddling city and suburbs say they reap plenty of benefits. Some want an easier way to escape; others like the dual lifestyles. In suburbia, they get many of the pleasures of being in rural or resort areas — including space and fresh air — along with the resources that come with being among full-time residents. Restaurants and stores are within easy reach; kids can join weekend sports teams . . . .

https://www.washingtonpost.com/reale...=.a1f4b40920c9

In many ways, this is what I'm doing except my "suburb" is 950 miles from my city and the back/forth is more of a seasonal than a weekly thing plus the "suburb" has a better climate the half year I choose to spend there while the city has the better climate the half I spend THERE.

[edale]

^ You're a walking argument for why Prop 13 needs to be repealed. Young professionals can't afford homes while aging boomers pay next to no tax on their incredibly appreciated real estate assets and purchase second properties.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by edale

^ You're a walking argument for why Prop 13 needs to be repealed. Young professionals can't afford homes while aging boomers pay next to no tax on their incredibly appreciated real estate assets and purchase second properties.

My aunt lives in a coastal CA neighborhood of mostly retired cops, nurses and teachers, and the homes are all worth $3 million+ and many folks have a second home. Talk about being born at the right time and place, and buying RE at the perfect moment.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by edale

^ You're a walking argument for why Prop 13 needs to be repealed. Young professionals can't afford homes while aging boomers pay next to no tax on their incredibly appreciated real estate assets and purchase second properties.

Young professionals still won't be afford homes regardless of prop 13. It's not Pedestrian's or any other boomer's fault they bought in during the 70's when real estate was still reasonable. See New York...

[edale]

Originally Posted by JManc

Young professionals still won't be afford homes regardless of prop 13. It's not Pedestrian's or any other boomer's fault they bought in during the 70's when real estate was still reasonable. See New York...

It will encourage the turn over of homes. Prop 13 massively distorts the market.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by edale

It will encourage the turn over of homes. Prop 13 massively distorts the market.

The houses would still be expensive. The problem with California is that they want to give everybody a 3 bedroom bungalow with a yard. They should've been building way more multi-family dwellings a long time ago.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by edale

It will encourage the turn over of homes. Prop 13 massively distorts the market.

So..social engineering to force people to give up their homes by taxing them out so someone else can move in. That's pretty selfish. This isn't an Applebee's where people are done eating and hogging a table for an hour during a Friday night. These people are not going to live forever and eventually they will pass on and the homes will hit the market. Plus, I think folks like Pedestrian are in a position to where repealing prop 13 won't drive them out of their homes.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by JManc

So..social engineering to force people to give up their homes by taxing them out so someone else can move in. That's pretty selfish. This isn't an Applebee's where people are done eating and hogging a table for an hour during a Friday night. These people are not going to live forever and eventually they will pass on and the homes will hit the market. Plus, I think folks like Pedestrian are in a position to where repealing prop 13 won't drive them out of their homes.

I've said this before but I'll say it again: Here's how and why I bought a second home.

One fine day I wanted to go visit some friends in the suburbs so I went to my car in my building's parking garage I hadn't seen in weeks and found the battery dead for lack of being charged by driving the car. I said to myself, "Self, why do you have this thing?"

At about the same time, a friend came back from Tucson to San Francisco's drippy winter and told me how great it was being in the warm sunny desert. I decided to check it out. I went for a visit. I discovered not only was the weather great but the price of property was such that I could buy a small, quaint home with a mortgage payment of about as much as my garage payment in SF. I bought a home, drove the car to its garage, left it there and stopped paying for a space in SF--net cash flow = no change. The car was even useful in the Tucsion exurbs.

That was 18 years ago now. Prices for everything concerned have escalated--garage spaces in SF, homes in Tucson and especially homes in SF. Might not work now. I'm thinking I should blame millennials who must all be winners in their own minds.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by edale

^ You're a walking argument for why Prop 13 needs to be repealed. Young professionals can't afford homes while aging boomers pay next to no tax on their incredibly appreciated real estate assets and purchase second properties.

https://science.howstuffworks.com/li...s/jealousy.htm

[The North One]

Originally Posted by edale

^ You're a walking argument for why Prop 13 needs to be repealed. Young professionals can't afford homes while aging boomers pay next to no tax on their incredibly appreciated real estate assets and purchase second properties.

Most "young professionals" still can't afford shit and have crap loads of debt before even thinking about a mortgage. Taxing long term residents extreme amounts suddenly would do nothing but rip out average people and hand over a real estate feeding frenzy to the super rich, California would instantly transition into total serfdom instead of just mostly.

[edale]

Originally Posted by The North One

Most "young professionals" still can't afford shit and have crap loads of debt before even thinking about a mortgage. Taxing long term residents extreme amounts suddenly would do nothing but rip out average people and hand over a real estate feeding frenzy to the super rich, California would instantly transition into total serfdom instead of just mostly.

Ok, so substitute 'young families' if that makes it better. People start families much later in cities like LA and SF than they do in the Midwest and South. I'm talking about people in their mid-30s who have good careers and are still not able to purchase a house. So it's ok to deny this generation a chance at home ownership, but I'm supposed to feel for people who are sitting on multi-million dollar assets that they purchased for next to nothing in today's terms? If Prop 13 was eliminated, no doubt some people would be forced out of their homes because they wouldn't be able to afford the true tax burden they should be paying. But they could cash out and take their millions and purchase somewhere else. They could buy a block in Detroit and turn it into their own gated community. I don't feel bad for those people. I feel bad for my own generation who is being robbed a chance at home ownership and building wealth of our own.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by edale

Ok, so substitute 'young families' if that makes it better. People start families much later in cities like LA and SF than they do in the Midwest and South. I'm talking about people in their mid-30s who have good careers and are still not able to purchase a house. So it's ok to deny this generation a chance at home ownership, but I'm supposed to feel for people who are sitting on multi-million dollar assets that they purchased for next to nothing in today's terms? If Prop 13 was eliminated, no doubt some people would be forced out of their homes because they wouldn't be able to afford the true tax burden they should be paying. But they could cash out and take their millions and purchase somewhere else. They could buy a block in Detroit and turn it into their own gated community. I don't feel bad for those people. I feel bad for my own generation who is being robbed a chance at home ownership and building wealth of our own.

OTOH, those 30-somethings could also take their talents to Detroit and afford a house with ease...

[JManc]

Originally Posted by edale

I'm talking about people in their mid-30s who have good careers and are still not able to purchase a house. So it's ok to deny this generation a chance at home ownership, but I'm supposed to feel for people who are sitting on multi-million dollar assets that they purchased for next to nothing in today's terms?

Then they should go where the affordable homes are and not expect 70 year-old couples who've lived in the same house for 40+ years to have to uproot their lives so entitled millennials can have their home. At some point, Millenials and X'ers need to grow up and stop blaming Boomers for everything.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by JManc

Then they should go where the affordable homes are and not expect 70 year-old couples who've lived in the same house for 40+ years to have to uproot their lives so entitled millennials can have their home. At some point, Millenials and X'ers need to grow up and stop blaming Boomers for everything.

The astronomical housing prices in California (and NY) is absolutely the fault of Baby Boomers. But taxing them out of their homes isn't the way to fix it.

[edale]

Originally Posted by JManc

Then they should go where the affordable homes are and not expect 70 year-old couples who've lived in the same house for 40+ years to have to uproot their lives so entitled millennials can have their home. At some point, Millenials and X'ers need to grow up and stop blaming Boomers for everything.

They literally changed the fucking tax laws to their own benefit, and future generations aren't allowed to complain about it? The couple who is sitting on a 3 million dollar asset has the money to cash out and buy elsewhere- same state or another state. The young person/couple does not.

[suburbanite]

Originally Posted by JManc

Then they should go where the affordable homes are and not expect 70 year-old couples who've lived in the same house for 40+ years to have to uproot their lives so entitled millennials can have their home. At some point, Millenials and X'ers need to grow up and stop blaming Boomers for everything.

Easy to say if you're comfortably settled where you want to be. Not that I blame anyone for acting in their own self-interest and owning a home where they've lived for decades, but to say the options available today are the same as back then just isn't true. The fact is someone in the 70's and 80's had a multitude of affordable urban options available to them. Moving to LA, San Fran, Seattle, even New York was doable on an entry-level salary and those cities had diverse economies and the wide variety of jobs that come with them. You could say they were sketchier and rough around the edges, but I'd love to opportunity to live in grimier 90's Manhattan over unattainable 2020's Manhattan. Where do you seek price relief nowadays? Salt Lake City? Kansas City? Unless you're lucky enough that your field is prevalent in those cities you'd probably be doing significant harm to your future career prospects.

I bought my first condo a year ago. 1,000 SF and I paid over 3 times as much in nominal terms (probably just over twice as much in real terms) as my parents did for a 4,000 SF new detached home in 1994, with a salary that is not indexed anywhere close to that level of inflation. The reality is that the previous generation did not have to compete with a globalized real estate/job market anywhere close to what it is now. I'm not going to blame the boomers for taking advantage of beneficial times, I wish I could do the same, but the opportunity for the average person to live in a tier 1 city is something that seems to be fading. I'm not going to cry about it, if you really want to make it work you'll find a way and that's what I'm doing. To distill the discussion down to something as trivial as "Millennials are complainers, and should just move for affordability" is disingenuous though.

I commonly see this attitude among older users here of "well we figured it out, so I don't see what Millennials are complaining about" and it just reeks of an inability to objectively evaluate something outside of one's own experiences.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by JManc

Then they should go where the affordable homes are and not expect 70 year-old couples who've lived in the same house for 40+ years to have to uproot their lives so entitled millennials can have their home. At some point, Millenials and X'ers need to grow up and stop blaming Boomers for everything.

in my experience boomers can get the fuck out of the way i have a family to feed. the silent and ww2 generation rolled out the goddamned welcome mat for those assholes and retired. i’m almost 40 and show up on fucked up jobsites and start shutting shit down from neglecting boomers who don’t give a shit about anything anymore

[mhays]

It wouldn't eliminate everybody's problems. But it would go a very long way for affordability for anyone buying for the first time.

[mhays]

Wow...equal taxation would be "social engineering"?!

The current situation is social engineering.

I've owned my place for 11 years (not in CA)...the idea of asking for special treatment is absurd.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by mhays

Wow...equal taxation would be "social engineering"?!

The current situation is social engineering.

I've owned my place for 11 years (not in CA)...the idea of asking for special treatment is absurd.

CA is a social engineering state. Everything to do with state government is designed to encourage one behavior or another. Prop. 13 is designed to allow long-time residents whose taxes would have inflated merely because housing costs have but whose incomes may be fixed to stay in their homes and in the state. On the other hand, were it not for all the other social engineering policies, taxes wouldn't need to be so high in the first place.

It is what it is. If you are envious, move to CA and in 35 years or so of paying taxes to the state you too may be smiling. Or maybe not. Maybe by then the bill for the excessively generous pensions of state employees who keep the politicians in office may have come due.