Long Island young adults find independence - but not without difficulty

During the young adult years that Erik Van Wickler, 28, was living at his parents' Oceanside home, mom and dad didn't charge him room or board. "Good deal, right?" says dad, Richie.

It is.

But having to accept such an arrangement is a raw deal as well.

While plenty of 20-something Long Islanders are lucky enough to be able to stay in their old bedrooms after graduating from high school -- or move back in after college -- most would like to have what one expert called "the economic wherewithal" to move out.

A study released in September, called "Long Island's Rental Housing Crisis," estimates that 85 percent of Long Islanders ages 20 to 24 are living with their parents or older relatives, and more than 54 percent of Long Islanders ages 25 to 29 are still living that way. The report was prepared by the Manhattan-based nonprofit research organization Regional Plan Association for the Long Island Community Foundation.

Those numbers are higher than the national percentage. In 2012, 36 percent, or 21.6 million, of young adults 18 to 31 lived with their parents nationwide, according to a study by the Washington, D.C.-based Pew Research Center, which analyzed data through March of 2012 from the U.S. Census Bureau. And that's the highest national percentage in four decades, according to the report, called "A Rising Share of Young Adults Live in Their Parents' Home."

That critical mass has made the situation easier to accept for parents and for members of what's been dubbed "the boomerang generation": In a Coldwell Banker survey released this summer, adults ages 18 through 34 said they think it's acceptable to live with parents up to five years after college.

But everybody wants them to move on at some point.

So Newsday is offering some Long Island role models.

Erik Van Wickler, for instance, and his girlfriend, Courtney Appelbaum. While Van Wickler was living with his parents, Appelbaum attended Rutgers University, but after graduating moved in with her parents in Oceanside. The couple recently left their childhood homes and moved into a four-bedroom house in Point Lookout in September.

How'd they manage to do it?

They're sharing the house with another couple. "A whole house is cheaper to rent than two apartments," Van Wickler says they all realized. Van Wickler and Appelbaum share the upstairs master bedroom and living room, and the other couple has the downstairs bedrooms, one of which they turned into a living room. The couples share the kitchen and laundry room. They split the $2,200-a-month rent.

"One of the things that's important to understand about this trend is that almost always the reason for being home is economic," says Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, author of "When Will My Grown-Up Kid Grow Up?" (Workman, $16.95) and a research professor of psychology at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. "It's highest wherever rents are highest." And that includes Long Island.

"There aren't many choices here for them," says Sharon Mullon, project manager for the Long Island study. Other suburban areas of the New York region have 2 1/2 times the number of available rental apartments per household as Long Island, according to the report. "The opportunities that do exist are almost cost-prohibitive for them," Mullon adds.

That's because many emerging adults can't find jobs, are living at their parents' homes while attending graduate school, or have full-time jobs that don't pay well enough to allow them to be self-sufficient, Arnett says. In 2012, 63 percent of 18- to 31-year-olds in the United States had jobs, down from the 70 percent of their counterparts who had jobs in 2007, according to the Pew study.

"There is this stereotype that they're just lazy and just want to sponge off their overindulgent parents as long as they can," Arnett says. But when asked if they would prefer to live independently of their parents, even if it meant a lower standard of living, 74 percent of the emerging adults surveyed in a 2012 Clark University Poll of Emerging Adults answered "yes," Arnett says.

So while parents and their adult kids may get along, and may even enjoy each other's company in the household, that's not the main thing keeping kids living in their old bedrooms or in their parents' basements, Arnett says.

It's money.

Of millennials ages 18 to 31 who have jobs nationwide, 29 percent are living in their parents' homes; of those who are unemployed and looking, 45 percent are living with mom and dad, and of those who have given up even looking for work, 50 percent are living with mom and/or dad, according to the Pew report.

"Millennials who have jobs are much more likely than their unemployed counterparts to have flown the parents' nests," says report author and Pew senior economist Richard Fry. The Great Recession and the weak recovery have clobbered 20-somethings, and, until the job market rebounds, the trend will likely continue, Fry says. "The key driving this is the vigorousness of the job market," he says. Emerging adults need "economic wherewithal."

To help young adults move out, parents should help them have a "vision of their life," says Robi Ludwig, a Manhattan psychotherapist and real estate lifestyle correspondent for Coldwell Banker. Ludwig worked on the real estate company's survey.

"They see moving back home as a strategy to help springboard them out into the real world," Ludwig says. Parents should avoid enabling their kids to become what Ludwig dubs "perma-children."

"There's a part of us that wants to stay in that childlike mode, where someone else is taking care of our needs," Ludwig says.

Parents should be sure their kids have a goal, such as paying off some student debt or saving to buy a house or to accumulate the chunk of cash needed to move into an apartment. "Underscore that you are an adult; it's not high school anymore," Ludwig advises. "The bottom line is, everybody has to move forward in life and look toward the next chapter. The goal of parents is to get the kids to live a successful, independent life."

It can be done.

* first and last months' rents

* security deposit

* furniture

* money to pay utilities

* down payment

* closing costs

* furniture

* money to pay utilities

One of Rhatigan's parents worked at Citibank and talked to the couple about how they would be wasting money paying rent and suggested they buy. "It kind of just kept progressing," Rhatigan says.

Stripp put everything he earned into savings, except for buying an engagement ring. Both sets of parents helped with early wedding gifts -- the event is set for June -- and Stripp sold his car because he has a company car. That's how they amassed enough for a down payment.

They started looking in Suffolk, hiring a buyer's agent. They found "the house of our dreams," Stripp says, but it came with a nightmare: The owner got nine offers. Stripp and Rhatigan's agent suggested they write to the owners telling them how much they loved the house, how they were engaged and wanted to start their life together there and how they would take very good care of the property. They also upped their offer slightly.

It worked. "We reminded them of them when they were looking for a house," Stripp says. The owners were planning to stay in the area, and their friends lived across the street, so they wanted to be sure they would like the buyers, Stripp says.

"It was kind of nice to go back initially. You get laundry done, you get all your meals," Guttenberg says. But being away from Miller night after night was aggravating. "She goes back to her house, I go back to my house. . . . It was just time."

Ronni and her husband, Howard, both 55, have four children. The eldest, 37, recently bought a house in Dix Hills. There's also a 23-year-old son at home who attends Nassau Community College and a 19-year-old at West Virginia University. She says she worries her kids will move off Long Island: "Our taxes are through the roof, and the job opportunities aren't great on Long Island."

Andrew Cunha told his parents when he was about 8 that he intended to serve his country. "He's always been very patriotic," says Nelson, who was born in the United States but grew up in Portugal. While Andrew was overseas, the elder Cunha didn't sleep well due to worry that his son would be hurt, killed or affected emotionally. So there was an unusual benefit to Andrew returning to the nest: Dad slept better. "I felt like the family was complete again, whole again." He's proud of Andrew for buying a home at such a young age. "If you want your kids to be grounded, put some weight on their shoulders," he says.

On Sept. 15, the two couples moved into a four-bedroom house in Point Lookout. Van Wickler and Appelbaum share the upstairs master bedroom and living room, and the other couple has the downstairs bedrooms, one of which they turned into a living room. The couples share the kitchen and laundry room. "We can be together if we want," Van Wickler says. They often barbecue together on their second-story deck, which has a view of the ocean. Their housemates have a bulldog named Chubbs.

Van Wickler's dad, Richie, says he didn't mind having Erik home. When Erik and his girlfriend first moved to the small apartment, they didn't have a washer and dryer, "so we were guaranteed to see them on Sundays," Richie says. Now, he and his wife visit the couple in their home instead because it's near the beach.

The elder Van Wickler acknowledges he was initially worried about the living arrangement. "It's one thing to visit your friend or have your friend over, and they leave," he says. "When you are there with the person all the time, there's the possibility of getting on each other's nerves." But he echoes his son: "So far, so good."

"The hardest part is there are a lot of expenses in the beginning as far as furnishing the place and learning how to budget yourself," Klein says. He says he tries to see his parents in Commack every Sunday. "Whenever I go there, I raid their refrigerator, and I go in the pantry and get toilet paper," he says. He says he's tempted to move back home because he wants to save money to buy a house; it's hard to do that while paying rent.