WSJ article: Retirees who sell "forever" homes

[Jakob]

Dear Luvtoride, Ah the stairs discussion.

Jakob, This makes sense to me other than perhaps “stairs” in a townhouse.
I read the article and it seems to me that the examples used were all people who made decisions to make big moves (far from areas they lived in or knew much about) without adequately exploring/ researching all of the factors necessary.
As I’ve stated in other threads here, being close to our kids and grandkids in the area we live now is the most important factor of where we will live in retirement. As others have also said it “we’re not going anywhere”.

Dear Luvtoride, As an occupational therapist, I have thought long and hard about this issue. To me there seems to be two main breakdowns. First, as Betty White would state, stairs keep you young. I have planned my townhome with a bathroom on the first floor. And if need be I can install stair glides. Although, stair glide‘s are not my fantasy, looking at places with elevators increases the expense dramatically and the feel of the condo is less appealing. Of course, there is no one right answer, and each person needs to make their decisions based on their analysis. Thanks for your reply, it is always good to hear a different perspective.

 

[MC Rider]

......First, as Betty White would state, stairs keep you young..............

Saw one recently, a 4 level hillside home. No elevator, no shortage of stairs. Probably not a good candidate for a forever home.

 

[skyking1]

I can elect to do stair climbs. I remember many years ago when DW's friend had a terrible back spasm and the firefighters removed a window from her split level home to get her out.

 

[Katsmeow]

Dear Luvtoride, As an occupational therapist, I have thought long and hard about this issue. To me there seems to be two main breakdowns. First, as Betty White would state, stairs keep you young. I have planned my townhome with a bathroom on the first floor. And if need be I can install stair glides. Although, stair glide‘s are not my fantasy, looking at places with elevators increases the expense dramatically and the feel of the condo is less appealing. Of course, there is no one right answer, and each person needs to make their decisions based on their analysis. Thanks for your reply, it is always good to hear a different perspective.

A bathroom downstairs is helpful. I once broke my ankle and if my bedroom/bath wasn't on the first floor that would have been difficult.

Our main criteria for a house was no stairs. Both DH and I have "bad" knees. I can walk up and down stairs but walking down is painful (up is fine).

Also, I have osteoporosis. It is not "severe" and I've never fallen and broken a bone (the broken ankle was years ago and unrelated). But I make a big effort to avoid anything which adds to fall risk. So, 3 things I avoid in my home:

1. Stairs
2. Area rugs
3. Cords stretched across the floor

 

[marko]

I’m surprised that more people don’t factor this in.

I was having an ongoing discussion with some family members and said that, if we moved, I’d want to be within an hour of a level I trauma center. No one else thought it was important.

I'm alive today because I live within a mile of a great hospital. DW drove me.

If I had lived out in the boonies and to wait for an ambulance come to drive me an hour or so, I wouldn't be writing this now.

We used to vacation at a secluded, private island in the Caribbean. At night there was only a security guard. If I needed a doctor or hospital I'd have to get a boat (somehow) to get me to a hospital. As much as we loved that place I'm now leery of being that far from help.

Time isn't always money...sometimes it's of the essence!

 

[skyking1]

We want to be within a short drive to regular doctor visits, let alone EMT and hospitals. I know the frequency of doctor visits tends to go up.

 

[1242Vintage]

I think we are in our forever home now. It’s a two-story home, but all the main areas, including master bedroom are on the first floor. Upstairs bedrooms were the kids and now vacant. Figure if I need the help maintaining the orchard or compound will just hire it. And my long-time neighbors are awesome and we look out for each other.

Have a fire house near, with a proven response time from 911 call to appearance at the gate (yes they came to the house once) of 10 minutes. And a hospital with trauma center close by.

Unless I do something stupid and fall cleaning out gutters on the second floor roof, we will be hanging out here for a long time.

 

[Teacher Terry]

I have lived in 5 states and starting over making friends always takes time and there’s no guarantee that you will find your tribe. Many people retire to Reno so am lucky to have lived here for past 25 years.

 

[Ronstar]

Unless I do something stupid and fall cleaning out gutters on the second floor roof, we will be hanging out here for a long time.

I fell from a ladder getting off the roof after cleaning the gutters. Not hurt, but it was a wake up call. I'd advise you to get gutter guards. I now have them - they work great and I haven't been on the house roof since.


ETA - The gutter guards will probably cost less than dr and hospital bills from a fall.

 

[Winemaker]

Friends of ours shared ownership of a large home with dock and private harbor on the Chesapeake with siblings; it had been in the family over 100 years. Everyone, including extended family, lived over 5 hours away, not including those on the Left Coast. Anytime visiting was spent fixing, repairing, painting for our mid 70yo friends. They finally had enough, and sold.

 

[Romer]

I fell from a ladder getting off the roof after cleaning the gutters. Not hurt, but it was a wake up call. I'd advise you to get gutter guards. I now have them - they work great and I haven't been on the house roof since.


ETA - The gutter guards will probably cost less than dr and hospital bills from a fall.

It costs me $120 a year to have my gutters professionally cleaned

Gutter guards seem like a good option, but the company that does clean my gutters is inexpensive and does a good job so haven't made them a priority

 

[athena53]

I first saw the term "forever home" in a long, sad post on another board during the financial crisis- someone was losing their home to foreclosure. They'd had it built with every bell and whistle, including "hand-scrapped" (sic) wood floors. (I know quite a few kids and dogs that will scrape your wood floors for free.) Their realtor had called it their "forever home".

To me, "forever home" is a term realtors use to goad people into going over their budget. My late husband and I downsized a year after we retired so I've been in it 6 years now. I love it- so do my family and friends when they visit- but when I can no longer do the cleaning, mowing and gardening, either DIY or hired out, it will be time to move.

 

[1242Vintage]

WSJ article: Retirees who sell "forever" homes

ETA - The gutter guards will probably cost less than dr and hospital bills from a fall.

Thanks for the advice. Now I have a local and very trusted handyman drop by and clean out gutters when he’s here taking care of other tasks that I don’t want to do. I’m not climbing up there anymore and risking a fall.

Thought about the gutter guards but brother who lives nearby has them and pine needles still jam his gutters up.

 

[Andre1969]

That's a great point. RE has helped me with this though. I never figured it would be a "forever home", but I've owned my retirement home in the mountains for 20 years. If/when I start needing easier access for medical, I'll move. I just turned 60, so I'm hoping I still have 10 or 20 more years here. But I'll take it as it goes.

I tend to think of my current home as my "forever" home, as in, I don't feel the need to upgrade to anything bigger or fancier in my lifetime. I can be happy here for the foreseeable future, unless the neighborhood goes south or something. But, I'm not kidding myself...eventually, it will get to the point that it's too much to keep up.

I bought it when I was 48, and I'm 51 now. I'm having a 36x60 garage built on the property, and it's just about finished...so I think I'm going to be here for awhile!

 

[kgtest]

I'm alive today because I live within a mile of a great hospital. DW drove me.

If I had lived out in the boonies and to wait for an ambulance come to drive me an hour or so, I wouldn't be writing this now.

We used to vacation at a secluded, private island in the Caribbean. At night there was only a security guard. If I needed a doctor or hospital I'd have to get a boat (somehow) to get me to a hospital. As much as we loved that place I'm now leery of being that far from help.

Time isn't always money...sometimes it's of the essence!

You aren't the only one that looks at risk this way. My insurance company was asking me approx how many feet my home was to a fire hydrant knowing that could be the difference between life and death. Not only do you want health care accessible, you also want it to be quality. When my sister was dieing of stage IV colon cancer she was treated by the University of Minnesota, the Mayo Clinic and the National Institute of Health. Had she not had access to those, she would have passed away easily a year or so sooner. That was an extra year she spent with her 3 lovely children. Priceless in that scenario.

 

[marko]

You aren't the only one that looks at risk this way. My insurance company was asking me approx how many feet my home was to a fire hydrant knowing that could be the difference between life and death. Not only do you want health care accessible, you also want it to be quality. When my sister was dieing of stage IV colon cancer she was treated by the University of Minnesota, the Mayo Clinic and the National Institute of Health. Had she not had access to those, she would have passed away easily a year or so sooner. That was an extra year she spent with her 3 lovely children. Priceless in that scenario.

When I was much younger I met a very old Frenchman who was on vacation. He said he chose where he went and stayed based on how far the nearest hospital was.

At the time, I thought he was just a crazy old coot. Now......

 

[Methos1979]

We are fortunate in that we never 'upsized' our first home, a small 3-bedroom ranch in the beautiful, rural seacoast region of New Hampshire. We somehow managed to raise three kids there and now we're coming up on retirement and two of the three kids still live nearby including the one with three kids of her own. Little grandbabies just 10 minutes away. Heaven. The house is paid for.

We're in the woods but have two great hospitals and no shortage of doctors minutes away. World-class hospitals are an hour away on all sides. We're an hour from Boston to the south and the White Mountains to the north, and just 30 minutes to the ocean. Deer, bears, fox, coyote, turkey, fisher - you name it, I've seen it in our yard. Except moose. Haven't seen that yet. Property taxes are high but NO income tax. Winters are cold but if you don't have to go out then who cares?

So we've decided to just stay. Making lots of upgrades to the house so unless the surrounding parcels of (wooded) land sell to a developer and they want to give us a ridiculous amount of money for our land, we're likely going to die here. And if we need to go into a retirement or assisted living facility at some point, we currently are an acoustic duo that performs in them regularly so we know which ones to choose. But I do need to get those gutter covers.

 

[BizzyC]

This topic is so interesting to me.

As a college student, I heard a story from a fellow student about his parents' retirement "forever" home that so horrified me I remember it to this day. The parents had just retired and were financially well off. They decided to buy raw land and build exactly the perfect retirement home for themselves. Here is the sentence that he said that I can hear in my head to this day. . .

"I sat there and watched them do it to themselves."

Apparently as they designed the home with the builder, the builder would of course offer, would you like to add this thing, would you like to upgrade that thing, did you consider the other thing, etc., etc., etc. By the time the home was built it was massive, and waaaaaaay to big for them, far bigger than the home that they were "downsizing" from. I think they may have lived in it for a year or two before selling.

Now, many years later, I find myself struggling with conflicting thoughts on my own situation. On one hand, I would like to have a place that had an in-laws-quarters, room to park an RV, spacious rooms, big kitchen, updated furnishings, etc. I always wanted a "dream home", but if I am going to do it, well, the clock is really ticking on that. It's a challenge to keep up with the home I have now. On the other hand, I think about how nice it would be to be able to just lock the door and a go away for lengthy travel without worrying, and that it might be nice to get into a CCRC soon so that I'm already in position as I begin to need more services. Kinda opposite ends of the spectrum of choices. Add in that I live in California and have lived in the same house for coming up on 20 yrs, so even if I moved and bought a significantly less expensive house, I'd probably pay much more in property taxes. I think I'm slowly defaulting to a decision of staying put, and putting some $$ towards improving the house I already have.

 

[Andre1969]

Apparently as they designed the home with the builder, the builder would of course offer, would you like to add this thing, would you like to upgrade that thing, did you consider the other thing, etc., etc., etc. By the time the home was built it was massive, and waaaaaaay to big for them, far bigger than the home that they were "downsizing" from. I think they may have lived in it for a year or two before selling.

A similar thing happened to the Mom of a friend of mine. Around 1997, she upsized, from a small-ish 4br/2ba cape code that was around 1500 square feet, on a slab, to a much nicer, largish ~2500 square foot colonial that was brand-new. Oddly, by the time she made this move, I think 3 of the 4 kids had moved out, so it was just her, one kid, and the husband (remarried).

At some point the last kid moved out, and there was a divorce. Soon after she retired, she decided to sell. I think that was 2015. My friend told me his Mom was moving to an over-55 community. I was under the impression she was downsizing. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

About a year after she moved, it came up in conversation that she had over-extended herself to buy the place. And after the first year, the HOA doubled, from $100/mo to $200/mo, and that was almost enough to break her. I also found out that, while she moved to a house that was somewhat smaller, it was one of those sprawling one-level models that's deeper than it is wide, and had a HUGE basement that she had finished off. Factoring the below-grade square footage, it probably wasn't much smaller than the house she sold. I also learned that the new house was about $100K more than the one she sold. So much for downsizing.

For awhile, she went back to work part time, doing accounting or book keeping or something like that. Eventually, she met a man (a good man, not a leech) married him, and now she's doing all right, but it was rough for a few years.

Seems to me though, that she would've been better off just staying in the old place. And if the raise of $100/mo in the HOA fee was enough to strain her, she was cutting it a little thin, to begin with!

 

[Markola]

WSJ article: Retirees who sell "forever" homes

This string is why I have no problem including 10 -20% of our home equity in our financial projections. If we live to 70-75, we’ll certainly sell this place and move to something smaller and less expensive. It makes a meaningful difference for portfolio survivability, too.

 

[W2R]

I'm 73 and I tentatively plan to stay in my present 1500 sf home forever, or for as long as possible. My home is well suited for aging in place, with lots of helpful adaptations for the elderly or disabled. It's so nice, quiet and peaceful, and feels like home. I love living here and hope I never have to move to a CCRC or anywhere else.

Of course, one never knows what the future may bring. That's a sad thought. Makes me wish I was a few decades younger.

 

[Sunnymar]

Add in that I live in California and have lived in the same house for coming up on 20 yrs, so even if I moved and bought a significantly less expensive house, I'd probably pay much more in property taxes. I think I'm slowly defaulting to a decision of staying put, and putting some $$ towards improving the house I already have.

In California, you can probably transfer your present tax base to your new property, keeping the property tax you have now. Prop 19 was just passed, the exact terms are bring clarified along with the older Props 60 and 90.

 

[braumeister]

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[skyking1]

This string is why I have no problem including 10 -20% of our home equity in our financial projections. If we live to 70-75, we’ll certainly sell this place and move to something smaller and less expensive. It makes a meaningful difference for portfolio survivability, too.

It makes sense to look at it that way. We are about to upsize for the next 15 years if we are lucky, and it will appreciate much better than the current home. Then we'll be doing the downsize.

 

[Major Tom]

Check out this map.
https://www.amtrauma.org/page/FindTraumaCenter

As much as I harbor thoughts of moving to a less populated area, I am currently just 2.4 miles from a level 1 trauma center. Hmmm, decisions and choices..........