Kids Flock Home to Brownstone Boomer Parents

0803The%20Royal%20Tenenbaums.jph.jpg The Observer, keeping with their trend-watching, is reporting that 20-somethings are moving back in with their parents after college...that is, if the parents own prime New York real estate (aka: Brownstone Boomers). Didn't we all see this coming with The Royal Tenenbaums?

One Carroll Gardens family, the Eisenbergs, have seen their three daughters return for varying amounts of time -- they are, of course, just one small section of a new generation of kids returning to the nest nationwide. As opposed to some other places in the county, however, they get rent-free living in expensive, "hip" neighborhoods.

A few factors drive this phenomenon. The Brooklyn neighborhoods where these graduates grew up have become hip places to live, and rents there and throughout New York City have skyrocketed. “Another important thing, I think, is that the clash in values between parents and their grown children is not as extreme as it once was,” Rusti [Eisenberg[] said.

One of the Eisenberg flock even brought her boyfriend home to live in the Henry Street home for three years! For the most part this is a strategy to save money and buy a room of one's own someday, one 20-something interviewed in the article pointed out that, “The amount I saved while living at home was enough for a down payment on an apartment" (a studio in along Prospect Park West for $130,000 in 2002, sold in 2006 for double that amount).

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By Jen Carlson in Arts and Events on March 26, 2008 4:11 PM

Comments [rss]

Novanglus

The earlier comment is right about this being more common in New York, where the cost of living high, and day-to-day life makes it more understandable and accepted.

I know friends of mine elsewhere in the country that own their own homes, whose mortgages are smaller than my rent. FTW?!

I am interested in finding the places mentioned that's selling for "$130,00". Is that $13k or $130k?

Think2wice

I love hipsters who were actually raised here. They've got the street cred on lock.

Steven

Don't live in the northeast and then you don't have to live with your parents.

babyhitler

we definitely need the draft. More hipsters dying = more affordable housing.

JacqueMehoff

all the more reason why we need the Draft.

then they can move into segregated areas and all that good American Dream stuff.

matty

It's a sad state of affairs when a young couple can't even afford a starter home.

These boomers need to sell their real estate to their kids and rent from them. That's the only way real estate is ever going to be transferred to young people these days.

CR

Y'know, there was a time when this was normal behavior. Is it really such a bad thing? If my parents lived in the city I sure as hell would move back in with them to save money.

Pharmer

This is true. My neighbor's daughter is 28 and still living at home. She recently got married and her husband moved in. I guess I'm one of the few who finds this odd.

chuzzlewit

I can't stand that horrible cottonelle ad campaign that's everywhere now - are they suggesting someone would want to wipe their ass with a puppy? and the puppy bus is horrifying.