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After the condo, the pair purchased
a 2,100-square-foot Cape Cod built in the late 1950s. It sat on
three-quarters of an acre and was less than a mile from town. In
10 minutes, the Fitzsimmons family could walk to the center of town
alongside children on bicycles, trotting dogs and babies squealing
from strollers.
Seven years after moving to Mendham, after the birth
of their third child, it was time again to move to bigger digs.
"We did not want to move out of the borough, as we were invested
with the public school system and (had) many wonderful relationships,"
Fitzsimmons says. As luck would have it, they found a center-entrance
colonial the day it was listed on the Internet.
Shortly after they'd spotted it, a friend phoned to
tell them about a great house that had recently gone up for sale.
It was the same house. They saw the house on Wednesday, put theirs
on the market on Thursday and by Sunday had a new place to call
home.
"We're all creatures of habit," says Curran,
broker-owner of Realty World First in Raleigh, N.C. "We all
have comfort zones, and when you've lived in a place for three or
four years, you feel comfortable. To move to the other side of town,
you give up so much."
One of the biggest reasons people stay put is that
they like to know their neighbors. In a fast-paced world where headlines
get scarier by the day, it's nice to know that people will smile
and wave as they retrieve their mail or walk the dog.
Relocation myth?
H. Charles Lemire Jr., executive vice president and regional director
of RE/MAX of New England, doubts whether Americans ever really experienced
a relocation craze. Lemire himself has been a lifelong resident
of Rhode Island. Now he resides in Barrington, R.I., and commutes
62 miles to work so he won't have to abandon the neighborhood that
he's loved for so long.
"The media represents that there's a great deal
of relocation and that we live in a world economy, and I don't know
that that's actually true," he says. "(Studies show that)
buyers search eight weeks for a house and move 12 miles from their
previous residence. ... Several of us in a neighborhood of 33 homes
either have parents living in the same neighborhood or are in this
neighborhood because we grew up here."
Easier to stay put
People are planting roots just like their parents and grandparents
did, Lemire says, for a whole host of reasons -- continuity for
the kids, familiar friends, and access to family and services they've
come to appreciate. For some, the thought of finding a new hairdresser,
pediatrician or farmer's market is just too daunting.
Plus, in the technological era, it's easy to change
jobs without ordering change-of-address cards. The dot-com growth
of the past two decades has allowed more people to work from home,
telecommute or otherwise figure out creative ways to work without
relocating.
"There are many industries where you might not
have been able to do that in the past, but you can now," Lemire
says. It's healthier for families, he says, to stay in the same
place even as mom or dad's work changes.
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