A reader had this question. I know of at least 2 people who have done this. It has enabled these elderly to stay in an apartment they know and love.
I have been reading your work and blog for a long time and thought you might be just the person to ask since you seem to know a lot of “random” things (I say that in the best sense of the word).
I heard once about a tradition in France whereby younger people buy the homes or land of people that are older and have no children. the idea is that the younger purchasers allow the elder owner to stay in the home on the property and are cared for until they die. The older person is cared for and the younger person gets the property at less than market rate – a win/ win situation.
I think this is an amazing concept as there are many people who are open enough that they would care for someone that is alone but not well off enough that they can afford to buy a market rate home. So, I think this idea in NYC would be terrific.Brooklyn seems like the perfect borough to start it and I wondered if a) you had ever heard of anything like this and b) if you would know how one would go about finding elderly home owners.
Yes, as I re-read this, it sounds a tad creepy (why would one not want to care for an elderly apartment dweller) but this is what 18 years in NYC has done to me (made me real estate obsessed!)
But truthfully, if we don’t find some way to maintain a little economic diversity in NY, we are going to lose (we have lost much anyway already) what made NY so unique. Anyway, I thought I would contact you and see if you had any ideas. If this is too off the wall, please just delete.
I first heard of this concept a decade ago when Jeanne Calment died at age 122. She outlived Andre-Francois Raffray, a lawyer who, 32 years before that, when she was merely 90, bought the apartment she lived in on one such contingency contract. He agreed to pay her 2,500 francs (by 1997 about $400) a month until she died, and then the apartment would become his.
Raffray died a year before Calment did, at 77, after paying her more than $180,000, better than double the apartment’s market value. His family was still paying when she died.
Now I do know a gay couple in the Slope who owned a brownstone who cared for the old woman in her 90s in the brownstone next door. She suggested they buy it from her and keep her there until she died, and that’s what happened, but they treated her as a member of the family and did everything for her long before any real estate deal.
Today they rent the house next door to them.
Sounds like the deal a younger guy had with his mother, who lived in an old house up on the hill above the family motel.
I think the family was named “Bates”
This is a fascinating idea. Considering how ridiculous the real estate market is in this town, it might be a great solution.
My friends in Paris purchased the rights to a flat using this system years ago.
They have paid the owner what is essentially a reverse mortgage. She was in her 80s when they entered into this arrangement. She’s 102 and walks to the market every day. This system has not worked out as they imagined.
I often thought that would be such a
nice solution for older folks with no family… I suppose it would be fraught with dangers for both sides of the equation… but in a more perfect world wouldn’t that be just the best “win-win” situation for the older homeowner and the younger family?