Cindy Durgin and her family live in an average two-story suburban house with a small yard. Yet she yearns for a large country retreat where she could take peaceful walks in the woods.
Will Durgin demand that the family move?
Not for at least five years when both her teenage daughters are out of high school, she vows.
“The girls have such close relationships with their friends, I don’t want to take the chance of uprooting them,” reasons Durgin, the broker-owner of two Century 21 offices.
Like millions of Americans, Durgin has let the wants and needs of her children exert a powerful influence on her housing plans. More than ever, children are helping decide when their parents move and what housing their parents buy when they do.
“Parents really aren’t necessarily the boss in the house anymore,” says Janet Bodnar, a senior editor at Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine.
With so many time-strapped mothers in the work force these days, parental guilt is prompting more parents to try to “pay back” their children in material ways, Bodnar believes. She reached this conclusion while researching her new book, “Kiplinger’s Money-Smart Kids,” a paperback aimed at parents.
To be sure, parents have always sacrificed for their kids. And it’s only right and proper that parents should want their children to live in attractive, low-crime communities where they can go to good schools and have stable friendships.
The problem is that a growing number of parents are letting their children drive housing decisions in ways that are not financially prudent or fair to the parents’ own interests, real estate and finance experts say.
“There’s often a big difference between what children want and what they truly need,” Bodnar observes.
Kids like big yards, playground sets, swimming pools, nearby parks, neighborhoods with other kids, and rooms of their own. They like “smart house” gismos, such as intercoms, security systems and automatic garage door openers. And very often, children will make snap judgments about a potential home on the basis of superficial factors.
An 8-year-old boy, for instance, might spurn a house on the basis that his bedroom would have wallpaper with a pink bunny rabbit design.
While most parents wouldn’t be thrown off course by the pink bunny wallpaper, they may feel pressured by their kids’ preferences to buy the wrong house.
“Buying a house is an enormous purchase. And to get yourself in over your head because of your children is really foolish,” Bodnar says.
Sure, a family with four children could use five bedrooms. But the kids will be better off sharing bedrooms than having parents who must work overtime to meet their monthly housing bill, Bodnar says.
“Parents should stick by their own values. They shouldn’t be too afraid of their kids,” she says.
By the same token, parents shouldn’t necessarily place their own aspirations and practical interests behind those of their children. Your kids may wish for the country house on the creek where they can play with abandon. But if buying that house means you’ll face a grueling daily commute, maybe you should get something closer to the office.
It could be even more foolish to decline a once-in-a-lifetime job offer in another city simply because your teenagers are dug into their current neighborhood.
“Parents don’t always realize how much they’re reacting to their children’s feelings,” cautions Dorcas Helfant, a realty executive and former president of the National Association of Realtors.
How should you handle the influence of children when charting your housing plans? The experts offer these pointers:
– Distinguish between your kids’ true needs and their transitory preferences.
– Set limits on your children’s involvement in the home-buying process.
“Kids should have some input, so you won’t have to listen to their groans and gripes if they’re not happy with what you buy. But they shouldn’t dictate the major points of a home purchase,” says Mark Goldberg, an agent with the Prudential real estate chain.
Helfant suggests that the early steps in the home-buying process preclude the children. Then, after the parents have narrowed their search to a few properties that meet their requirements, the children may be brought in for their opinions.
– Remember your children’s other material needs, besides housing. Baby Boom parents may have more discretionary income than past generations, but they also face escalating child-rearing costs.
In setting your household budget, don’t forget to factor in the costs for your children’s discretionary activities, such as music lessons and recreation.
– Don’t confuse your own material expectations with those of your kids.
“Materialism may be a strong motivating force in your life,” says Bodnar, “but your kids probably don’t care at all.
