Well, things are chugging along. The things that were either wrong or annoying about the place have taken a bit more time to fix but nothing has been a horror story so all in all I am pleased. When they removed the faulty previous renovations to the attic (made into an office and bedroom) I thought there might be a lot of rotting wood because of the way things were stained on the siding outside. But rot was minor. The main focus has been getting that area updated since it was in such poor shape. The corrections to the supports and the installation of skylights really opened up the room and the whole thing has now been blessed by the county inspector (yay! a big relief). This old house was built solidly but out of two by sixes whereas now things would be made out of much bigger lumber - so getting things blessed by structural engineers can be tricky. Currently the work is focused on moving the massive HVAC unit from the sunny front of the house to the shady back of the house, building a false chimney up the outside wall to carry the ductwork upstairs to the home office. This involved cutting new holes into the brick foundation wall and re-working all the ducts throughout the house. The old system was patched and in some places just homeowner done and not efficient. The problem now is that I really want to use as much of the basement as possible as a workshop but getting the duct guys to understand me has been difficult. There are certain rules about how sharp a turn and how many feet a duct can travel and I want as much of the ductwork as possible out of the way which doesn't look like it is feasible. So in order to get from one end of the room to the other I am either going to be stepping over ducts or stooping under them a couple of times. Not what I wanted. Most of the problem is that the HVAC unit that came with the house is monster big (actually a good thing), the previous owner didn't have it ducted the right way so it was unable to cool or heat every room and he used small ducts. My crew is putting in these massive ducts which will do a great job of keeping things ventilated and cool but I will sacrifice workspace down in the basement - so I should shut up and quit complaining. The previous owner has never shown up to finish hauling off his junk. My understanding is that he really fell on hard times financially and just couldn't get it together. I've been piling it up and having the workers add it to their loads to the dump (and I've been paying for that pleasure). In addition to all that - I been fixing up my current house to put it up for sale and things are going s-l-o-w. I had such big plans about really going through everything and tossing out the stuff I don't use or need but that just takes way too much time. I'm down to throwing stuff in boxes and piling them up in the corner and hoping that someday I will be able to go through it. The realtor winced when she saw how much clutter I have (and my house is only a quarter of how cluttered my parents house is) and she suggested I find some newer appliances for the kitchen. She also warned that looking at the numbers I should not expect to get much for the house - so that's a bummer, but things are changing everyday so by the time I have it ready to sell and the new house is ready to move into the situation might be better. You asked for numbers: My final low ball offer was just under $30,000 of the debt owed by the seller (remember I thought I found the actual payoff amount online but I was wrong. So I went in thinking I had the facts when in reality I was way off). This made it a short sale and his lender took about a month to accept my offer and forgive the rest of his loan (remember he was about to foreclose). Then my lender appraised the place at $20,000 less than my low ball offer and I said I would only pay the appraised amount. His bank took one week to accept. The realtor pointed out in the closing that the final price was less than half of the original asking price - so it sounds like I got a great deal but the houses value dropped even further after I bought it. So I got it for a song but if things had drug out for one more month I could have saved another $35,000!!!

jillinnj that's a great link. It points out a factor that I think we keep missing here with our comparisons and justifiable rants. The tax on a property is relative to the income of the owner. The house highlighted in the original post has high property tax, but if the owner income is proportionate the taxes are not a burden. My original question was what do you pay as a *proportion* of income because I think that's a more realistic indicator of impact on lifestyle. I'm wondering if people in NJ, for example, are more likely to be house poor because of the ratio of income to tax or if the people in TN are living a relatively easier life with more *proportionately* discretionary income. Everything is relative. My DH could not earn the same income he currently does in a small town in TN but an equal house in terms of size and amenities would probably cost significantly less and be taxed far less. It *could* have a significant impact on lifestyle. Quality of life is a very subjective qualifier - I might hate small town life in TN or I might hate city life in NJ but I don't know of another way to get the same sense of what it costs to live where. Certainly there will always be very high incomes in low cost of living areas but not likely to be the norm. But in some places a property owner really has to be in a high income bracket nationally just to be able to afford housing. It's not easy to make this an apples to apples comparison.

KK, you know how I feel (it's basically how you feel) but I'm just going to reiterate my $.02 on this subject for the newer posters. Here's my summary of how I feel about this, as to what is fairest: -No one should get thrown out on the street. Surviving spouse should have house free and clear as long as s/he lives there. If s/he decides to move, it then becomes a question of whether parent wants to write will to provide share in profits from sale to children also. If house is the ONLY asset, then no remainder should go to kids since most or all will presumably be needed to purchase comparable new house. If house is one asset among many, there is option for parent to decide that kids should share in all assets, ensuring, of course, that there is enough to provide for spouse remaining in comparable house. -In blended families with more than adequate means, there are enough assets where there is no reason it HAS to be an "all-or-nothing" scenario. In these cases, it's just inviting discontent and trouble to insist that one party has to get ALL of the estate and other parties have to get NONE. -yes, there is a difference between families with means and families without means. In families without means, splitting sale of house may very well mean that spouse is rendered homeless. In families with means, leaving everything to spouse may very well mean plastic surgery, trips to Europe and designer clothes & bathrooms for footloose & fancy-free spouse and decades of bills, dead-end drudgery and debt for hard-working children (and their children). NOT FAIR, I don't care how anyone wants to couch it, and not comparable to a situation with actual hardships. ESPECIALLY if this scenario is not what Dad would have wanted or envisioned when he trusted his spouse to be a fair and reasonable 'steward' of his hard-won assets. -If supposedly it's "all about what Dad wants", then LISTEN to him and ACCEPT it. If he says (when he's in sound body/mind, and especially if he says it numerous times over several years) that he wants everything to go to to wife, kids have to accept that. If he says he wants everything to go to kids, wife has to accept it. -No one should try to change "what Dad wants". Neither kids nor wife have right to TRY to do so. Sometimes wives and/or kids feel like by virtue of their particular place in his life, they are more entitled to try and influence not only his decisions but even his FEELINGS and thus even what he WANTS. This is wrong, not to mention daunting. -But the subject should not be completely taboo. The key difference is *discussion* vs. *demands*. Wife and kids may raise their concerns and hope Dad takes these into consideration. Hopefully one conversation will suffice to lay the concerns on the table (but when another party is relentlessly and repeatedly manipulating the situation from the other side this becomes more challenging). Pushing the issue repeatedly and forcefully becomes manipulation, coersion and soemtimes abuse. It is wrong, no matter who it's coming from: ex-wife, lawyer, kid, current wife. Wrong, wrong, wrong. -Simply put: SM is not Mom. Second marriages, in estate planning, have to be considered differently than first marriages. In first marriage, wife is *MOM*. Mom (if she's like most, good and caring) protects and secures her childrens' future. SM may or may not and most often doesn't after Dad dies. It's a fact. Ask estate lawyers, or go looking up other forums on the internet discussing stepfamilies and inheritance. They're generally not discussing ways to ensure the step-kids get their due. If anyone on here can find me ONE example of a step-parent discussing how they can better ensure their stepchildren's future inheritance, I will send you 20 bucks. -In my opinion, in blended family situations where there are above-adequate means, fairest is to split everything between wife & kids. Perhaps provide proportionately more to spouse, relative to how many years older they are than oldest kid since they will likely have more medical issues and become decreasingly employable after a certain age. First make sure that no one is rendered homeless and that none of the survivors have to pay each other's debts. -if Dad leaves all to wife, hoping wife will leave remainder to kids, it won't happen. (Same might be true if everything is left to kids to distribute to wife.) Could be passed down to surviving wife's existing family, or her new family, or spent on drugs, clothes, QVC, stuff for new babies, plastic surgery, or mismanaged or otherwise G-O-N-E by the time she passes and children (age 70+) need it for their own medical bills, retirement, etc. -Too often kids of divorce get screwed over by the cruel irony of exactly this sort of situation, and here's how: Dad's new wife claims she should get *everything* because in first marriages, that is often how it goes: all to surviving spouse. But fails to remember the next step of that traditional pattern: when surviving PARENT passes, remainder goes to children. The parent's OWN children, that is. Step-parents also often argue that their step-children shouldn't be in their spouse's will because ---PRESUMABLY--- kids will inherit from the other parent. (Or even their grandparents, as some arguments go.) All the while, in the same breath, voicing the mantra of "one shouldn't presume anything" or expect anything from parents as a way to justify THIS parent cutting the kid out. Incidentally, many of these same step-parents can and do expect to receive an inheritance from their own parents, and much sooner than their stepchildren will receive anything from anyone. -If Dad leaves ALL to anybody, he better want it all to stay with that individual forever. In an ideal world, we can trust people with this sort of thing. In the real world, we often can't. There are ways to make it so he doesn't have to CHOOSE one party or the other. In my heart, I feel that unless he hates his wife or kids, if he has to choose in this matter he will be just as torn and not-at-peace as he may have been all his life with other matters he may have been unnaturally and unnecessarily coerced into choosing one-or-the-other about.

Estate sales were a grand form of entertainment and a great way to furnish our house when my husband and I were first married. Once he retires, I predict we'll be back at it. I still have a china buffet, a game table with chairs, and several dressers that we purchased over 20 years ago at estate sales. Today I went to one in a 1960's era ranch but only found a couple like-new square cake pans for $3. There's a prominent estate sale company in this area that seems to get most of the business, but I've almost given up on going to their sales because, so much of the time, all they have are left overs of whatever the family didn't want. Some of their sales are so sparse, the items really should have been donated to Goodwill or sold in a garage sale instead calling it an "Estate Sale" with false advertising stating, "House Full!!"