Ron and Kathy Kern began looking in earnest for their forever home this past spring when their youngest child finished college. The couple hoped to trade their two-story, four-bedroom house in the Indianapolis suburbs for a smaller, one-floor ranch where they could more comfortably age in place.
Unfortunately, it didn’t work out the way they had hoped.
The Kerns put in four offers, withdrawing the last one and losing their escrow in the process when they learned how much the home’s needed renovations would cost. After the demoralizing experience, they decided to suspend their search until Ron, 61, retires from his job at an engineering firm sometime down the line.
“We’ve never experienced a market like this before. … It’s a roller coaster we’re ready to get off of for a while. This last offer just did us in,” says Kathy, 58, a recently retired ATM specialist at a credit union. The empty nesters, who live in Fishers, IN, are having trouble sleeping and losing weight as a result of the stress. “When you do find that house where you don’t have to remodel anything, that’s the house that everyone else is looking for.”
