Colorado Springs Real Estate Facts & Fun

Some schools are in the midst of finals week this week, and others are gearing up for it next week. Where is your college student spending this summer? If they are a freshman or sophomore this year it is likely they will be moving back home or taking summer classes. If they are a junior, likely wherever their internship takes them, and if they are a senior….

It is not uncommon these days for college students graduate or not, to move back home after school. Unless graduates have a job offer before graduation (and those are coming in fewer than most realize), then it is a good possibility that your adult-child will need to move back home to get their real-world feet under themselves. You thought at 18 you were done, didn’t you? How do parents help out their children during this time, will still giving them independence of an adult, especially an adult who hasn’t lived at home for the last 4+ years?

If your student is in their earlier years of college, keeping a room for them might not be that difficult. Resist the urge to redecorate it into an aquarium, or a sewing room. They will be back for holidays and breaks, and if you want them there for those, you will keep a space for them. If they are chasing down jobs out of state or out of your area, then it could be time to start looking at other ways to use the room. Turning it into a welcoming guest bedroom for all guests could be a nice way to say, “The door is always open, but it’s my house.”

In Colorado, basements are hit and miss. Some houses have them, many don’t. If you are lucky enough to have a walk-out basement, one option to offer up to your college grad moving back home would be to finish the basement into a mini-apartment. Having an exit where they can come and go from without having to run plans by the parents gives a level of privacy that would not be given if the bedroom were upstairs. By fitting the space out with a private bathroom and bedroom, it is helping the overall functionality of the rest of the family. Remember 5 years ago when there were screaming matches for so-and-so to get out of the bathroom? Ask yourself if you really want to go back to that with children 5 years older than then.

Try to resist the urge to baby and smoother your child though. Yes, it is nice to see them so often again, but no, do not do their laundry or they will never leave. Setting up ground rules before they move back in is practical. Let your student know that they can live there as long as they need to, but the expectation is they will find a job very soon (preferably with the degree you just paid for), and will help them search for an apartment to live in once they land a job. Also let them know, it is ok to look outside of the town you are living in. Not all jobs are where we want to live, and by looking outside the immediate community, another opportunity may present itself. By gaining useful work experience somewhere else, in a few years it may be possible to return to the town you really want to settle down in. Additional rules may include: cooking one dinner a week, mowing the lawn, performing household chores while not actively searching for a job, running errands, and picking up younger siblings from school. You are helping them out by providing shelter, probably rent free. It isn’t too much to ask they assist you in ways they are able. By forcing them to plan out a dinner once a week, you are also setting them up with basic tools they may not have acquired with a school cafeteria at hand, and that is how to plan an entire meal, finding recipes, learning how to cook and learning how to put together a shopping list of everything needed for the meal, then shopping for the items. Seems basic, but imagine my horror when I learned my fiance knew how to cook, but not how to read over the recipe first to make sure everything was there for the recipe!

What once was viewed as failure, moving back in with the parents after graduating from college, is not viewed the same way anymore. With the job market difficult to navigate and students being more money savy, moving back in with the parents for a little bit to get their feet under themselves is becoming the new normal.

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