Las Vegas: Say What?

In my previous post, I mentioned the possibility of moving to Las Vegas. That was news to some of our friends and family, so I’d better explain.

We were stationed at Nellis AFB in Las Vegas for our last tour in the Air Force, 1995 to 1997. We bought a house in Henderson, a bedroom community on the south side of Vegas, and enjoyed our time there … you may think Sin City would be a weird place to live, and in many ways it is, but it’s also a good place to raise a family. Vegas has excellent schools and parks; abundant shopping, services, and hospitals; good roads and infrastructure; low taxes. I looked for civilian work in the area after I left the service, but the job that came my way was in southern Arizona, so we moved.

We’ve been in Tucson 26 years now, 24 in the same house. Neither Donna nor I, as kids, lived anywhere very long; once married and raising kids of our own we kept up the tradition, moving every two to three years. We could never relate to people who grow up and stay in the same town their whole lives, but after 26 years we’re beginning to understand the attraction. Moving, at this stage of our lives, would be a BFD.

And odds are it won’t happen. The idea is, as we edge ever closer to our 80s, to be near our son and his family, who live in the same Las Vegas suburb we once called home. But for that to happen, we’d have to get absolute top dollar for the Tucson house, and after buying a much smaller house in Henderson there’d need to be a stack of money left over … starting a new life in another town, not to mention the supplies and alterations you need to make a new house your own, is expensive. How likely is any of that to happen? Housing prices in Tucson peaked last year and are slowly coming down again. Housing prices in Las Vegas keep going up.

Meanwhile, we’re in a good situation here. We have a mortgage we can afford, and as things get paid off it’ll only go down, not up. Our one-story house can easily be made elderly-friendly with grab bars here and there (looking at you, master bedroom shower). We have a network of friends. We have our doctors, our dentist.

What if we age past the grab bar stage and need help? We’d have to hire someone or even go into assisted living … and that would be the case wherever we are. Sure, it’d be nice to have our son and his family close by, but it’s not like they’re going to move in with us and be our personal orderlies and maids when we’re too feeble to manage on our own.

We have a daughter, too. She lives with us in Tucson and has been between jobs, as they say, for years. What do we do about her? Another reason to stay put, right where we are.

So we’ll see. Donna’s at our son’s place in Henderson this weekend, looking at a couple of houses in his over-55 gated development. When she gets home she plans to call a realtor and see what we might be able to get for our house. Then we’ll crunch the numbers. Chances are, staying put will be the best option … might even be the only option. But Donna would like to move back to Vegas and you know what they say: happy wife, happy life.

More to come. Until then … stay fresh, cheese bags!