From CTV News (Bell Media):

“It might seem pretty rare to find a house with an elevator, but chances are higher you might find one in Calgary these days.”

  • @[email protected]
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    11 hours ago

    What an absurdly divisive title. As if every single boomer is buying an elevator right now specifically to spite other generations. Why not point out the more obvious demographic that is actually doing this: wealthy people. It was nothing to do with age and everything to do with how much disposable untaxed income you have lying around.

  • @[email protected]
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    1510 hours ago

    Good reminder that people should have a conversation with their parents about the fact that they wil probably end up unable to go up and down stairs at some point and that if they want to keep living in a house for a long time then a two storey house might not be the best solution…

  • @[email protected]
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    910 hours ago

    This is yet another reason why we need proper “aging in place” infrastructure like small retirement communities right near where people live, so people can both stay in their community but also get more appropriate accommodations as they age. Not only that, but those retirement communities will free up plenty of housing for younger people who are struggling to find housing.

    • RemmyOP
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      310 hours ago

      I completely agree. The race to the bottom dollar is so exhausting. Housing should never have been used as a financial vehicle.

    • RemmyOP
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      -1010 hours ago

      Exceptions to every rule exist.

      • Luke
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        1110 hours ago

        The vast majority of boomers are not wealthy. The vast majority of every age demographic are not wealthy.

        Considering something a “rule” that is overwhelmingly contradicted by “exceptions” makes the rule extremely silly to hang on to.

        Generational divisiveness is merely ageism used to distract us from class conscious analysis of issues.

        • @[email protected]
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          05 hours ago

          There is a higher percentage of working age people living in poverty than elderly people, yet every year more money is shifted from the working class to the retirement class.

          My father is 65, made over a million from selling the house he bought for 250,000, still collects my mother’s survivor benefits totaling half of her government pension (she died 20 years ago), gets a pension from magna, and next year the government is going to give him an extra 2 grand a month.

          I don’t think any more of my taxes should go to him, don’t you agree?

      • @[email protected]
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        510 hours ago

        Exceptions. WTF Most boomers are not wealthy, but according to Reddit they’re all drinking gold flaked champagne. Are your parents rich or grandparents? Here’s a secret most prople you meet are not wealthy.

        • RemmyOP
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          -210 hours ago

          You believe wealth exists only in a binary states of either gold flaked champagne or homeless destitution? Or perhaps you are being facetious? Regardless, the simple truth remains that your average boomer is much better off than your average millenial, or zoomer.

          • acargitz
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            39 hours ago

            Citation needed. Because I see older folks going through my recycling for empties every Wednesday. And I see tired exhausted old folks on the bus every day. Not saying rich boomers aren’t a thing, of course. But their elder millenial kids tend to be well off too by now. In the grand scheme of things, it’s a class thing, not an age thing. Always has been.

  • Rob Bos
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    910 hours ago

    My grandparents did this. Rather than downsizing after the fire and moving closer to services, they rebuilt their house even bigger and added an elevator, then asked all their kids to drive them around. Not ideal.

    • cupboard
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      610 hours ago

      Pretty much, the first thing the interviewed couple mentions is that they’re building an elevator in order to keep living in their home as they grow older (and assumedly become impaired due to age).

      • @[email protected]
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        -14 hours ago

        It must be nice to have so much money that they can indulge their sentimentality like that.

        Imagine having to move into a new house without stairs, they’d lose the will to live and die after a month

        • @[email protected]
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          34 hours ago

          It might be a purely financial decision of “we want to keep living independently but we can’t afford to buy a different house than the one we locked in 40 years ago, so lets spend a few thousand putting in an elevator instead of spending hundreds of thousands changing houses” since some major cities have housing markets that are simply that extreme

          • @[email protected]
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            13 hours ago

            My googling tells me:

            The typical cost to install a home elevator in a two-story house ranges from $30,000 to $60,000 on average

            Minimum cost: Around $20,000

            Maximum cost: Up to $100,000 or more

            National average: Approximately $48,000

            • @[email protected]
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              134 minutes ago

              Honestly I was thinking of how things are for my family in LA, where house prices are so bonkers that its legitimately cheaper to renovate (although part of that probably also stems from the local tax law limiting property tax increases for existing homeowners) but that’s really my only secondhand experience with a truly unaffordable housing market so I don’t know how transferrable that is

              • @[email protected]
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                11 hour ago

                Much doubt in that statement. Define ‘sellable’, is taking the price from 900,000 to 1.1 million making a house sellable? I guess you don’t want to leave 270,000 dollars on the table but if they’re at the point where they can’t walk up stairs ik going to hazard a guess that those amounts will result in the same quality of life for them

    • k_rol
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      610 hours ago

      The only boomer I know with an elevator is handicapped.

    • RemmyOP
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      -611 hours ago

      Just a standard office building elevator.