Eileen Vernon gave one of the final tours to friends of her parents’ home on Linkhorn Bay in VA Beach, remembering fondly sneaking out on the slate roof from her bedroom window, listening intently to her grandmother’s tales of the Lindsley family farm, and admiring her father’s meticulous upkeep of the two-story, brick Colonial home where she grew up.
It has been nearly three years since Vernon and her two brothers moved their mother, at first to a retirement community in Virginia Beach, but more recently to an assisted-living home.
They’re also nearing the end of the long, tedious process of taking inventory of all their parents’ possessions and getting the home ready to sell in an unsteady housing market.
For Vernon and her siblings, moving their mother, Eileen Davis, out of the home that she and her husband built 50 years ago was bittersweet.
Every room has a water view, every nook and cranny history. But keeping the home in the family wasn’t an option.
For Vernon, the taxes are more than the mortgage on her Princess Anne Plaza rancher. And paying for Davis’ 24-hour care is expensive.
"I can’t believe there’s a light at the end of the tunnel for my mom’s house," Vernon said.
As parents of baby boomers become unable to care for themselves, and as Baby Boomers themselves age, more and more are choosing to sell the homes they grew up in and let another family take over the property.
In 2011, according to the National Association of Realtors, 15 percent of home sales in America were of places that had been in the same hands for more than 20 years.
While some have to make the decision after parents have passed, others, like Vernon and her brothers, decide to cut the ties before that happens.
Nick Sell, president of Caring Transitions in Virginia Beach, receives frequent calls from children of elderly parents who need help navigating the waters of downsizing a large house and moving a parent to a smaller community.
Sell started his business to help people through the process – having experienced first-hand losing parents suddenly at age 22, just weeks before he was to deploy to Afghanistan with the U.S. Navy.
More of the story here
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