Hi,
Is there some other asset that your brother could inherit to make it equal for all? And, in the meanwhile, can you pay your brother instead of your parents, half the added value of living in your parent's home so that he has no hardship or hurt feelings that you have a perque that he doesn't have?
My thinking is that the house is cheapest if it is not mortgaged and if it doesn't change hands with all the transactional costs of a $2.4M home. It is kooky to do any of that when one or both of your parents are likely to live to see the grandbaby-to-come graduate high school, and leave for college, and for you then to be ready to live a great life in a LCOL locale instead of the VHCOL locale.
I will point out, too, that living in $2.4M in equity is not smart if it isn't really needed as a residence by the family in the VHCOL place you need to be in.
Let's say that you could move to an agreeable place and get a mansion for $600K which would house you and your parents happily, and more privately (a fancy in-laws suite). You could sell or rent your apartment and townhouse, and sell the $2.4M house now, and derive an income stream. If that new state you move to (Texas, Tenn, Florida) had no income tax, you might be so much better off that you could literally change the trajectory of the whole collective family finances, AND have a stream of $$ to greatly assist your parents when and if you need outside help giving care to them in their later senior years. The income from your apartment and townhouse would pay the taxes on the new place, and pay for lawn maintenance, too.
Most places in the country, $600,000 would buy more house than you vacuum without a 100 foot extension cord.
Time for a big family pow wow.