Parents Are Buying Condos for College Students
Is this PBB behavior? It is in my book. I mean, part of the concept behind going to college is to learn to make your own way. That’s not an easy lesson to absorb when you’re living in a condominium your parents bought and paid for. Oh, sure - you can argue that it’s a smart move to spend the money on a piece of property that will likely appreciate in value. And you can say it’s better to teach kids the value of investing in property in lieu of throwing money away on campus housing. But…but…um…well, shit, those are really good points. Still, my gut tends to side with education consultant Rebecca Kiki Weingarten, the only person ABC interviewed who sees downside to this scheme: “Imagine getting as a high school graduation gift this stunning apartment in the best part of town. It really skews the whole sense of what it is to be on your own.” Not to mention widening the divide between the haves and the have-nots. (”Oh, don’t hang out with him, Reginald. He lives in campus housing.”) Yeah! What the overpaid expert said! Seriously, though - is my pansy-ass liberal side showing through too much here?
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3 opinions for Parents Are Buying Condos for College Students
ann adams
Sep 6, 2005 at 8:16 am
From one pansy-ass liberal to another - this is a much better article than the one I managed to lose - makes the same point more dramatically.
$100,000 on a sweet sixteen party or buying a condo for your kid. What do they do for an encore?
rachel
Sep 6, 2005 at 12:00 pm
This happens in Vancouver all the time. It’s how some people invest — they buy a condo, let their kids live in it for a few years, and sell it at a profit. It’s nice artificial way of driving up real estate prices and just about pricing those of us who want to LIVE here out of the market. And the kids make annoying neighbors.
Sour? Me?
Philip
Sep 6, 2005 at 1:43 pm
I think it depends a great deal on whether there is guarunteed student housing. At Carolina there was only guarunteed housing for Freshman - I loved living in a dorm - but I didn’t make the lottery the next year, and moved off campus to an apartment. I hate to think of all the rent money I threw down the drain in some real rat holes. I waited tables all through college to pay for those places; I’d much rather have been on campus and um, “studying,” instead of waiting tables every night.