‘She’s living the dream’: My stepmother said I can buy my childhood home for $850,000. Is she taking advantage of me?

My late father bought our house for $250,000 in the 1990s. By the time he died, it was worth about $850,000, mostly because it's spacious and in a good neighborhood. He left it to my stepmother, whom he married a few years after my mom died. She is now 74. They were together for 18 years. She took care of him through the whole illness, which I don't take lightly.

Dad told me more than once that the house would be mine someday. My stepmother now wants to sell and move somewhere smaller. She's living the dream in Miami. I offered $700,000. That's $200,000 under market, but I thought it was fair, given that she would skip agent fees and it would be a quick, clean sale. I'd have to stretch to do it, but I could manage.

She was really offended, and she told me as much. She said she's paid the property taxes and the repairs for years (she put a new roof on in 2021). She also said she spent a big chunk of her own savings on my father's care and that the house is basically her retirement plan, and that she can't just hand me $200,000 because I'm sentimental.

That's a fair point, and I told her so. What I can't get past is that a few years ago she gave her daughter $200,000 toward a house, and that is how (and why) I came up with the $200,000 haircut on my father's home. I brought that up, and she said things were different then, and pointed out that I have a good job and can buy my own place.

She said if my dad wanted me to have it, he should have arranged that before he died. As my girlfriend at the time said, "Yes, she really went there." That comment really stung. He trusted her with everything, and it feels like his wishes just evaporated. She says she honored him by caring for him and that I'm discounting everything she sacrificed.

I could, of course, walk away and buy somewhere else. I've even looked at a couple of listings. But it wouldn't be the same, and I'd always feel like the house slipped away from our family. I know that my stepsister's place has a sauna in the basement, and I'd bet anything that my stepmother helped pay for that too. Not that I'm keeping score. (OK, I know I am a little.)