Would you buy a home with an award winning layout or sell your home with your train layout?

This has been on my mind.  I am in my early 70s, and, as long as I am healthy enough to do so, I am going to live in my home and enjoy my layout, which is upstairs in a large room.  But, when it comes time for me to leave the house, the railroad will probably have to go.

It's not a "general interest" layout.  I specifically wanted to have southwestern scenery, and so do not have a tunnel or a high bridge.  Due to size constraints, I also do not have a roundhouse and turntable.  Those three things I don't have are three things most modelers would like to have.  I have a couple of wyes, but those kind of switching moves to turn an engine are complicated and time consuming.  For me they are perfect, as I took on the challenges and realities of railroading for 37 years, but it's a lot of work to turn an engine.  And it has a Custom Signals signal system, which is not on everyone's bucket list.  Lastly, it has no control panel.  I had to choose whether to have a pull-out drawer with the things most commonly used in it, or a pull-out control panel for turnouts.  I chose to use remote control (MTH) for the turnouts.  That would stop a lot of potential owners.

Trainworx built my layout, after I struggled for several years to build one on my own.  It came to me in a box truck, as modules, and was assembled, plugged in, and put to work.  And, when I can no longer enjoy it, that's how it'll go out.  But to where?  I called Roger about using him as a broker to sell it, but he told me that there is almost no market for used layouts, and that donating it is probably going to be the only answer.  Again, to where?  It's too complex to go to the children's ward of a hospital, in fact, it is probably only suitable for donation to a club, where there will be members who can understand how to get enjoyment from running trains on it.  It has railroad-specific -- Santa Fe -- details, and that isn't what most 3-rail model railroaders do. There's only one foreign-line engine on the entire pike.

So, as I am in very good health, it's not an immediate concern, but I am trying to enjoy it often, as I have less time remaining on earth, with each passing month.  And my life could instantly end at any time.  It only takes one distracted or impaired driver, mad shooter, airplane crash, massive heart attack, or a pandemic such as we are currently enduring, to separate me from my layout.  

I have talked with my children, all adults, and they know what to do when they are faced with disposition of the layout and sale of the house.  The trains, separate from the layout, do have resale value, and the kids know how to handle this.  And I'm trying to keep all the trains in good repair for my enjoyment as well as for their resale value.

As an update to my post from 2 years ago ... we ended having to dismantle and get rid of the entire layout in order to sell the house.  Every single person that walked into the layout room was completely floored by the size and scope of the design, and looked at it as if they were in a museum.  But it seemed like it was just entirely too overwhelming for any of the prospective buyers to take or want for themselves. 

In the end analysis, as a family, we just had to just accept and come to grips with the fact that the house would sell faster (and for a higher price) if we just cleared it out and turned it into an empty rec room so that buyers could have their own vision of what they would do with the space ... and a very large space it was indeed. 

And like someone in this forum advised above, I just had to find peace in the belief and feeling that the layout had served its purpose and my father got so much use out of it and made him very happy for many years while he was feeling well and able to enjoy it.