Hacker News Reader

It's not a bad thing necessarily but it seldom works well practice. Dating as an adult living with your parents is super awkward. How many women want to spend the night at some guy's house and run into his parents in the hallway the next morning? Ick.

Ambitious, upwardly mobile people often have to move for job opportunities. Meanwhile their parents are often not yet retired and are tied to a different location by their own careers.

The interpersonal dynamics can be really toxic. Often the older generation has particular outdated ideas about household management, religion, cooking, and child rearing. Clear boundaries have to be set and respected or else there is constant conflict and resentment.

> Might be an unpopular opinion, especially in North America

I once had the opportunity to ask a Vietnamese immigrant[1], "What do you think the US could learn from Vietnam?" and his answer reflected this. He frankly thought it was sad that US families "fracture" when children move out early. He admired the independence and individuality he saw in the US, but the recognized the cost of it was atomized families and expressed a deep sense that his kids would relate to him differently when they become adults.

The average American doesn't have the social technology to interpret habitation with parents in any way but through the lens of individuality and independence. I have sometime to learn here too.

What do you feel like you had to learn to make your arrangement work?

1. and Uber driver

> I have a wife and child, and we all live with my parents in a largish 6-bedroom house.

Yes, it's probably not so bad when you have twice the bedrooms (and I'm assuming sq footage) of an average house.

A different situation but similar sentiment, I have young adult children, and they have both moved out and back in at various times and both my wife and I probably enjoy life a little more when they're here, the hustle and bustle and things going on is kind of more rewarding than just hanging out with the dogs and going on trips. We like having them here. I never really got the perspective that if they aren't moved out they aren't productive members of society. They all have jobs and friends and are doing well, having them around is not a bad thing in anyway and brings a lot of extra richness to life.

This is pretty common for people in other parts of the world (Asia, notably). IIRC, it was kind of normal in Western nations during the Victorian era. In North America today, there's this culture of independence and individualism which would rub many the wrong way to have their in-laws/parents living with them all the time.

My own in-laws stayed with us a few times for a couple months at a time. I must admit the level of shenanigans my wife and I normally get up to was much lower during that time, even though I thought it was nice having them around for a while. Relationship dynamics are probably a major factor here, as well as personality types.

> kind of normal in Western nations during the Victorian era

Also known as the period of very high wealth inequality preceding this one.

its a great thing if all parties want it for the right reasons - if it is done solely out of economic necessity, not-so-much.

Economics is certainly one of the right reasons

Certainly: their post mentions _solely out of economic necessity_ is not certainly one of the right reasons.

>largish

Its large. ~40% of homes are 3 bedrooms. ~5% of homes have 5 or more bedrooms.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/206393/distribution-of-h...

Owning a house only to rent it out is part of the problem here. You're adding to the scarcity of housing while being blessed with parents who can house you.

You're blaming the symptom instead of the problem.

Given the current state of affairs, OP is doing the 'most logical' thing. If he sells his rental property, someone else will pick it up and rent it out.

The real problems are the rules that make it very difficult (practically impossible) to build high-density housing where it is needed and tax incentives that benefit owning multiple homes.

Being part of the problem is still being part of the problem. Agree that there needs to be a reduction of incentives, but folks could just stop taking advantage of the current system too. Logical doesn't mean right.

If they don’t take advantage, someone else will. That’s the entire point of what you’re responding to. You are at best attempting an ethics argument but ethics doesn’t always win.

It’s a broken system but this is akin to telling people to solve global warming by making small individual choices: it doesn’t work and we need larger action at the top to force the change.

They are not adding to scarcity because they are renting it out. The unit remains available on the market to house people. 1 house = 1 house.

If they were just sitting on it, that would be reducing available housing.

Incentivized by low interest rates, terrible housing supply inelasticity, and a confidence that population (and therefore demand) will grow, owing to immigration policy. All of those can be adjusted. Mostly investors buy houses to sell at a higher price, not rent out indefinitely. If the property taxes and mortgage rates hurt their bottom line and if demand does not surge as high, they would sell and would stop buying.

This happened in the US when most folks lived in rural areas and did farming. Families worked and lived together (the executive family) but this all changed due to industrialization and folks moving to cities which gave us the modern nuclear family.

Where are you from?