A new family moved in across the street from us a couple of years ago, a young couple with a baby. We didn’t know them very well (neither my wife nor I are the “chatty neighbor” type) but we would wave and say hi if we both happened to be outside. When my wife worked the 2020 census she got to go talk with them. He was from Russia, she was from Belarus (or maybe the other way around) and he was a grad student at the university.
A few weeks ago, while out walking around the neighborhood, I noticed they had a For Sale sign up in front of their house. And that weekend I saw some people standing in the driveway talking - presumably the real estate agent and prospective buyers. Within a few days the For Sale sign had changed to Contract Pending.
It’s obvious that the couple is no longer living in the house. We haven’t seen anyone outside, or seen cars come and go, for weeks. But as my wife and I got to talking about this, we realized that we never saw a moving van or any kind of moving out activity. It’s almost as if they literally just disappeared overnight. The fact that the timing more or less coincides with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine just makes it even more head-scratchy.
I doubt it. At least, if they had money to throw around, they weren’t ostentatious about it. They fit right in to our middle class neighborhood. On the other hand, they did appear to sink a chunk of money into the house after they bought it. They redid how the front yard was landscaped, apparently had their kitchen redone (based on trucks seen in their driveway) and a local handyman (who we also use) was over there frequently working on stuff. So who knows?
I go to a lot of estate sales and sometimes you see ones where it looked like the people left and took nothing with them but the cloths on their backs, even leaving luggage sets. I usually ask the people running the sale and I get answers like the family moved back to their home country and took practically nothing with them and hired them to just sell everything. Often times the house is sold before the estate sale.
One time I was told that the entire family died in a car crash out of state almost a year ago.
A Russian student in the U.S. may be dependent on his or her family for finances such as tuition, room and board. But due to the sudden devaluation of the Ruble last month, they may not be able to afford the house any more. There are restrictions on working with a student visa.
Could also be just a concern that if they didn’t go home now, they might be stuck here for a very long time, so they went while they felt like they could.
A grad student being able to afford not just to buy a house, but do extensive renovation/landscaping work suggests they have a lot more money than your typical grad student. When I was in grad school, I had to split an apartment with another guy, there’s no way I would have been able to buy a house.
So yeah, they probably have rich family connections in Russia and/or Belarus, and the money dried up very suddenly.
They may have contracted with an estate liquidation company who will take care of disposing of everything. The company may have an estate sale and give back a portion of the proceeds, or they may have paid a fixed value for all the contents. People commonly use these services when someone dies as a convenient way to clear out a house. If your neighbors were moving out of the country, it likely doesn’t make financial sense for them to ship the contents of their house.
If they were leaving the country in a hurry and never returning, they may have just walked away. Let the bank foreclose on it and deal with getting rid of the contents.
Grad students graduate, and then move on to post-docs or internships in other places. Sometimes grad students know what they’re doing six months before they finish, but often times they might not know up until the last minute. For example, the student was hoping to stay in the house with a post-doc at Local U, but funding for the position fell through at the last minute, so they had to move for a different position at Out-of-state U.
Are you sure they owned the house? If they were grad students, then maybe they were renting a furnished home and moved out when their landlord decided to sell the house, or maybe they just graduated and got jobs somewhere.
That doesn’t really fit with the renovations and landscaping, though. If you were a landlord planning such extensive work, you’d be likely to try to do it between tenants. I know I’d be annoyed if my landlord decided to rip up the kitchen just after I moved in.
FWIW, I’ve had new neighbours appear in a house across the street without ever noticing anyone moving in or out. But then, I tend not to pay much attention to the goings-on in the neighbourhood and wouldn’t necessarily notice if I didn’t go out anywhere on those days or happen to look out the window.
But yes, the war has had strange effects of citizens of both countries, and sanctions may limit the ability of folks back home to support children in the West. Here in Canada, there was a news story about a Ukrainian woman who ran a prosperous business back home, and as a successful businesswoman she could afford to fly over for a recreational visit with friends in Canada. The unexpected invasion not only destroyed her business, but stranded her in Canada on only a visitor’s visa and no ability to work. I can only hope our government gave her upgraded residency status and the right to work. I consider our admission of Ukrainian refugees to be a major asset to the nation.
ETA: “Contract Pending” on a sign is a new one on me. Around here, the sign simply says “For Sale” until an offer is accepted with all conditions removed, and then it just has “Sold” plastered over it.
