My dad (and his wife) are still about 10 years away from addressing the problem of needing people to drive them, but when the time comes I won't mind pitching in driving them places. We do that currently for my wife's grandparents, who, to their great credit, gave up driving because they knew they were getting too old; they even kept their car so that whoever was helping them drive places wouldn't take on the expense of using their own car.

Back to my dad and his wife, there are three of us children (six between them) within 45 minutes of them, and another two within 2 hours. Problem is they are talking about picking up and moving literally to the other coast 3,000 miles away. The sixth child (hers) lives on that coast, but still eight hours away from where they bought property.

We're currently in California, so they are tempted by the difference in property values, which I can see making sense on paper. Of course, it doesn't work in reverse, once you sell in California, you can't buy your way back in. You've spent that equity. And when you leave behind the entirety of your support system to save $300 per month, what's the plan?