Even an empty nest is still home, sweet home

Logic of downsizing proves hard to apply

TLogic would dictate that we should cash out before the rest of the baby boomers catch on to what’s happening and the market collapses.

he waterfront condo had everything. Three bedrooms on two floors, balconies from the main living area and master bedroom, a modest but workable kitchen, high ceilings in the commodious living room and a gas fireplace.

The view outside was leafy green but nothing special, but from the deck I could see the Sidney harbour less than 100 metres away.

It was the first time we had looked at a condominium I could imagine living in that was cheap enough to allow us to extract some cash from the sale of our house, cash that could be a bridge to early retirement or a travel fund.

My wife was not so impressed. It was too beige. The carpets were ugly. All the windows were on one side. When the leaves fall off the trees in the fall, the view will be of a parking lot.

And the real killer: To get to the front door, we had to go through a lobby, into an elevator and down a corridor. In other words, it isn’t a house. More to the point, it isn’t our house.

We’ve been looking at condos on and off for several years. At first it was as an investment that we could rent out and move into sometime in the future when we would be ready to downsize.

That went nowhere when we realized that none of the buildings that we might consider living in allowed rentals.

Now that the kids are gone, or at least headed in that direction, our house is too big and the future we talked about when we would want something smaller has arrived. Evidence is mounting that we ought to be doing something about it.

Maintenance of the deer wallow that passes for our yard is increasingly onerous as age — mine, that is — adds weight to the hedge- trimmers and seems to encourage the weeds to grow faster.

And demographers are predicting the bulge of people like us — baby boomers looking forward to retiring in a few years — are going to be as successful at squashing house prices over the coming years as they have been at driving them up over the past couple of decades.

Our house is our largest investment and biggest expense. Logic would dictate that we should cash out before the rest of the baby boomers catch on to what’s happening and the market collapses. Logic suggests we should slip into something smaller, easier to maintain and take a taxfree capital gain on the house we’ve called home for the past 14 years.

But the trouble with financial logic when we try to apply it to where we want to live, is that the clean, clinical version delivered by Spock on Star Trek rarely appears.

It gets all jumbled up with what we value. My wife values being able to step out of her own front door into the yard. She works at home, so she spends more time there. She values being able to gaze out over her own garden and being able to see the sun rise over Mount Baker and Cadboro Bay.

I like those things too. But I look out the window and see hedges that need trimming, grass that needs mowing and a battle against nature that we will inevitably lose.

I look at the house and I see a collection of aging materials trying to return to dust.

Not that I’m complaining. I also love the view, the privacy and even that idea that deer feel comfortable to hang out here. I’m just sayin’.

We consider renting out part of the house. We have a roughed- in suite and even though it isn’t legal now, I expect the foot- draggers at city hall will eventually come around on what seems to be such an obvious way to provide low- cost housing in decent neighbourhoods.

Renting provides cash flow, but it also makes us landlords, with all that entails and it brings strangers into our not-very-soundproof house. But how much noise will an axe-murderer make, anyhow?

And moving would require us to confront our stuff. Most of our furniture wouldn’t attract much of a crowd at a flea market, but there are some things I’d hate to let go. And naturally, my list wouldn’t correspond with hers.

So we’ll negotiate. We’ll look. And I won’t be surprised if we’re still here 20 years from now, talking about downsizing.