When kids move way to college, many parents following along

Jim and M.J. Berrien's gracious Cape Cod-style house rests on six acres, set back from a country road in Middlebury, Vt.

Black locust trees frame the entrance. In the back, a spacious sun porch with a cathedral ceiling opens to a mahogany deck where the Berriens entertain. Inside, blue-tinted glasses etched with a Middlebury College logo sit on the bar, and a newspaper clipping headlined "Reid It and Weep" is posted on the refrigerator door.

The Berriens' daughter Reid, shown wielding her lacrosse stick in the clipping's photo, has been a prominent athlete at Middlebury. Her parents barely missed a minute of the action. They didn't have to: Their second home, purchased from the college's former president, is just over two miles from campus.

"Just what every kid wants — their parent moves in, right?" said M.J. Berrien, who, with her husband, the president and publisher of the Forbes Magazine Group, keeps a main residence in Westport, Conn. "But we've always been very active in her sports life, and we wanted to be there for her games. That was the whole idea."

The Berriens were there for four years of field hockey and lacrosse, attending virtually every game and regularly hosting parties, tailgates and team sleepovers. Their daughter didn't mind. In fact, she said, she appreciated having the parents' home nearby for a home-cooked meal or a quiet night's sleep away from her dorm room.

The four-bedroom house has an oversized fireplace, a table tennis table, a pool table and a big-screen television. Those amenities will still come in handy even though Reid Berrien, 22, graduated in May: She is a new assistant coach of Middlebury's field hockey team.

Real estate professionals were the first to figure out that parental purchases of "kiddie condos" for college students, in lieu of paying for dorms, made sound economic sense. That practice is now common.

But some parents are investing in college towns in an unexpected new way: They're following their kids to college. They are buying second homes for themselves near campuses where their children are enrolled. Many, like the Berriens, want front-row seats to watch their family athletes perform. Some seek a gathering place for football games or family holidays. Others long for a retreat that is also a possible place to retire with the amenities of a college town — and why not the one where they have children attending?

Coldwell Banker has been tracking the phenomenon informally in its annual College Home Price Comparison Index, which ranks average home prices in more than 300 college towns across the nation.

"Our brokers told us story after story about this happening," said David Siroty, a corporate spokesman for Coldwell Banker Real Estate. "Parents buy a place to visit when their son or daughter is in school, and then they become a part of the town, they have friends there, they love the vibe of a college town — the culture, arts, sports."

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