As we get older we think of our future needs each time we do any remodeling. Easy maintenance and accessibility are our number one concerns. So we are planning wider doorways, pocket doors,easy to maintain not slip flooring etc. When ever I plan a room I do it with the thought of what if one of us is disabled or in a wheelchair someday.

I plan to live here as long as I possibly can. I never understood why people uproot themselves away from their neighbors,friends and family to live in retirement communities.

Now if I lived out in the sticks I might feel different. But I can't see selling and taking on a new mortgage to downsize at this point in my life. If I ever want a smaller home I can move into my rental. But I like where I'm at for now and the foreseeable future.

Now if I did have to move I would probably invest my capital gains or rent my house out and rent somewhere for me. It's the mortgage thing again unless I moved to a place that I could buy outright and was in an area with really low property taxes.

We are planning on building a home on Galveston Bay. With elevators!

I have awhile to go yet, but I can easily imagine buying a condominium downtown in my city. I have a 100-year-old 3-story Victorian, and though I love it, the maintenance is a bear and it really doesn't work when someone is sick or injured and can't handle stairs. (There are 8-9 stairs out front just to get into the house, and all the bedrooms are upstairs.)

I'm with Wildchild on not understanding why people uproot themselves from their communities and friends and doctors just when they need them most. My neighborhood isn't the key for me, though. I'm friendly with my neighbors, but none of them are friends.

We're 60 at the moment. DH will (hopefully) be retiring within the year. But he loves his job and the money--at the moment, since they're working 55-65 hours a week--is fabulous. He just got word Sat. that the overtime is likely to go UP to where they're working 12 hours a day, 6 days a week.

Anyway, once he retires, we are moving. We currently live in a 2 story house, with only 1 bathroom (on the second floor) and a fair bit of maintenance needed (still has old fashioned wooden storm sash/screens; lots of wood trim, etc). Besides the maintenance issues, it's in an area that's starting to go down and get a bit dangerous. Only 2 miles from the most violent city in the country, and on the bus line that the ghetto inhabitants use to come out to commit crime in the suburbs. It's been a great house and neighborhood for us for the past 37 years, but is NOT really a good retirement home.

We've already bought our retirement home. It's in a more rural area--but is close enough to health services, shopping, etc. It's a depressed area of the state, so things are actually MUCH cheaper there (we'd have paid $100,000-200,000 more for the same house if it were in our 'old' neighborhood). It's a great retirement home--a rancher, low maintenance, 2 full baths, lovely neighborhood with great neighbors. Less than a mile from the grocery store. It's considered an Urban Enterprise Zone which means the sales tax is half that in the rest of the state, and because it's an Abbott school district, the property taxes are about 1/3 that of what they would be elsewhere (the state picks up a lot of the tab in Abbott disctricts.).

We plan to enjoy our retirement home for many years. But I'm realistic. If something happens to DH in the next 15 years or so, I doubt I'd be able to maintain a house on my own.

My mom lived in a wonderful retirement apartment building. Lovely apts, fantastic staff who kept things in tip top shape, lots of activities, and rent was based on your ability to pay. She paid about #350/month for a large apt that would have cost upwards of $1600 in a commercial apt. building.

So I feel that it's an option that I may or may not take advantage of. I will be putting my name on the list for that apt. building when I hit about 65 or so, just so I have the option, if needed--they do have a 4-5 year waiting list for units. Obviously, if I can manage and afford to stay in a house forever, I'd love to. But at this stage of the game, I'm keeping all options open.

This is a real dilemma for me since I was widowed three years ago. I have made a lot of improvements to my house and really love the neighborhood and the location. But the yard requires a ton of maintenance and is what's killing me. If I do decide to give it up, I will probably rent a luxury apartment somewhere nearby. All my friends are here as well as the activities I pursue every day. My children are about 3 hours away and aren't married. If they marry and start having children I may reconsider.

Both my husband and I are disabled. Neither of us can work. We are staying in our home of 29 years because it's paid for. We do what we can for ourselves, both still drive. But when things go wrong and we need a household repair or grass cutting or snow removal or other landscaping, we have to pay someone to do it for us. Luckily we have found a Super Handyman . We wouldn't think of moving right now, we are just too comfortable in our home, it would be impossible to pack (yes, we are sort-of-hoarders) and I'd never want to leave my outside perennial gardens. So here we stay. One daughter still lives at home with us. She helps out with the cleaning of our home. She is in college but feels free to leave at any time. Our other daughter moved out to an apartment about a year ago.

We intend staying right here as long as we can. The house is a split level, so there are no stairways more than 6 steps, and as far as maintaining the house and yards, we are gradually adding more hired services, rather than DIY.

I'd like to buy a tiny house inland, where there is NO snow, maybe on an island, like Grand Caymen.....but DH likes HIS house. lol So......it's paid for and taxes are low....

Consider a Continuing Care Retriement Community (CCRC). We left our ranch-style home on 1 acre in the east to move to a CCRC in Washington State. We have a 1700 sq ft home w/ patio & everything is taken care of by the facility. As needs change, one can move on to assisted living or nursing care. We have all sorts of benefits: gym, pool, woodworking, lapidary, weaving room, gorgeous library--I could go on--all of this on a beautiful 140 care campus. There are banks, pharmacy, beauty shop, etc as part of it.

We are in the process of looking for an old building in our downtown area that we can purchase with another couple (or two). We can then convert it to loft living with a first floor that we can either use for business or lease to someone for a a business. Both we and the other couple have homes that take a lot of work, we both mow nearly 5 acres of grass, plus the gardens and ponds. What were we thinking? LOL!!!

Thanks everyone. I am a widow and am staying in my home as long as I can drive. The home owners dues pays for most of the work outside, I hear the mowers as I type. I went to my husbands retirement seminars and learned many useful things. One was a good reason for staying in your home, it is a safe investment. No one can take your home except the IRS for unpaid taxes or the mortgage company. If you sell your home and invest the money, it can be lost due to bad investments or being sued. Even if something happened and I need money, I could move to a less expensive home.

Lynn_d, that's interesting. I've talked with friends about doing something similar. I'd appreciate it if you would post updates on your plans.

I am planning to stay in my home as long as I can. Even when I can no longer drive, I could use the senior bus. I am only 3 blocks from the clinic and hospital. I do my own mowing and pay a neighbor to clear my snow. Senior apartments all seem to have restrictions on pets and I don't like to be restricted. I have 3 cats who are young and should be with me until my mid-80s.

DH and I moved into our new single-level 'forever' home nine years ago. It's on a quiet acre on a 'country' road in an established neighborhood, yet only three minutes to the center of town with rail service to Chicago. DH and I grew up in the Chicago suburbs and have never lived anywhere else.

We are minutes from two outstanding hospitals. O'Hare Airport is an hour's drive. DS and family are 25 minutes away. The weather is good here eight months of the year; we break the winter with 4-6 weeks on Maui.

The new house is easy to keep, with wood and tile flooring throughout, 3-foot doorways, lever door handles; it's only one step up to enter. Because this was a teardown, we have mature trees and shrubs along with the pleasure of tight, new construction. I've recuperated from two hip replacements here -- no stairs!

Some day (when we no longer have a Westie) we will consider assisted living. There are many choices near us -- one right in our town. For now I'd prefer to decide for myself what maintenance needs doing, at what costs, and who I hire to do it. ("Maintenance Free" means you pay to have a committee decide those things for you.) We have a lawn service, a man to clean the gutters and plow the snow, and a good handyman for what DH or DS can't do. We've always done our own cleaning, but there are plenty of services in the area.

Needing to live in a furnished apartment for three months towards the end of our build convinced us we are too old and crabby to live in an apartment. Dealing with a condo association as we do on Maui has revealed the pitfalls of dealing with a HOA.

I hope we have another 10 - 20 years here. We should be able to eat and pay our RE taxes that long! How long we stay will depend on our health.

My only regret is that we didn't build this house *immediately* after DH retired! I'm also glad that I'm not doing it now; my endurance declined considerably after age 60.

I'm only 53 so a long way from deciding on my retirement housing. At this point I'd plan to stay in my home as long as possible since I like it and it's paid for. It has some stairs though so who knows how that will work out in the long run. After looking into condos/townhomes where you someone does your maintenance I realized I can hire A LOT of maintenance out for the HOA fees most of those places charge and still have my privacy. We basically have no yard (woods and native plants) and we already hire someone to plow our driveway, paint our house, clean the gutters, etc. so I'm pretty much there in terms of hiring it out. The thing I think I would most dislike about moving is the lack of privacy that I now enjoy on a large wooded lot.

If I reached the point where I was unable to drive and/or had other significant limitations I don't think I'd be at all opposed to moving to a seniors facility of some sort if I could afford something decent.

Our city is converting some of the down town buildings to apartments and it sounds neat to me especially if it was a loft. The problem is there are no grocery stores down there or any reg stores, almost all business buildings. I now live within walking distant to stores where I could buy what I need. BTW, I don't like HOA's either, but I love my home. There are only trees behind my house with a hawk family, an occasional deer, fox and lots of bird.

hey terilyn...call me when you need those elevators...dh sells them, lol...of course it's here in detroit.

but if you need any advice let me know...

that's the one thing about our present home...stairs...and between meds i take and just creaky knees it's a pain to head up the stairs every day...

We built this home when we retired and plan to stay as long as possible. We built into our savings plan, money to hire help to care for us and our property. At some point, I am sure we will have to consider some thing else but for now this works and since we never know what the future holds, our plan is to take it one step at a time.

We paid cash for our home against the advice of our broker......he felt it was better to have that money invested but we didn't want any monthly costs hanging over us.........The value of our home should make for a comfortable apartment or assist whatever we need at the time.

I live in a condo. Easy walkin level. Nearby is an excellent retirement facility with assisted living for those that need it. I'll go there if and when the times comes.

I don't have a mtg payment, thankfully!

Ruthie, good for you paying off your mortgage. My Mom and I both received the same advice and back then it was good advice, but neither of us wanted a mortgage hanging over our heads.

My story.

After moving around several times we bought our home where we expected to be forever. Didn't happen. My husband died in 1982, age 62, cancer. By then son had married and moved to another State. Daughter married and lived close by.

I stayed on in the home, which I loved, for 6 years, and as time went on the house seemed to get bigger and bigger. The yard, which was huge to start with, and was my husband's joy, got to the point where I could not care for it.

I sold the house and bought a smaller, 2 BR, 1 bath, in a neighborhood about 3 miles away where several friends lived, and I knew many of the others who lived there. (Small town.) I remodeled and updated the house, which I like to do and it gave me something to keep me occupied. The yard was a disaster when I bought the house, so I made flower beds and planted shrubs every where there was dirt to plant in. My spinal problems and arthritis were getting worse and after my first knee replacement I had to hire someone to mow and shovel snow. Flower beds were looking pitiful. My feeling at that time was if I couldn't enjoy taking care of the yard, why have it? I stayed there 16 years.

I started looking for Retirement Communities. They all seemed to have been cloned. Then I heard about this one. It had been started a few years previously by two local, long-time, well known families, and is privately owned. Not at all like the Businesses that the other RCs were. I visited and met the owners and was shown around the premises. I went back to look around several times, and pondered maybe 6 months. They were in the planning stage of adding more units, and I knew this was where I wanted to be. I chose my site before the work even started and came many times to watch the progress. I have been here 7 years.

There are now 40 Independent Living villas, some with garages, (I have a huge garage) and 62 apartments. The homes are pretty much cookie-cutter villas and apartments like other RCs, but the atmosphere here is different. It is more family oriented, and casual. There are several people that I knew in town who have moved here too. We are on 20 acres of mostly lawn, trees and flower beds, in a some what rural setting. There are various sizes of cottages and apartments. There is also Assisted Living available.

This has been a good decision for me. I have never regretted it.

Sue

All I can say is that we moved my Mom into assisted living and it's not cheap. But she has long term Care insurance which will help. She's 88 and just can't live alone anymore. But when she was 55, she built the home we just moved her out of.. This is not an advertisement, but if you're in your 50's -- long term health insurance is something you might want to check out. A nursing home costs about the price of a good hotel - 160 a day...

Living alone in a rented farmhouse about 12 mi. from the city, I feel that I can live here as long as I can drive: hitchhiking in winter ain't fun!

At that time, I might follow my old Uncle's pattern, whose place this used to be: after his wife died, and when his eyes were too poor to get his licence renewed (that and a test required every 2 years after 80), he hired a lady to drive him to a village or the city occasionally, usually about once per week, for business, shopping, etc.

I'm rather gregarious and to sit in a farmhouse looking at myself in the mirror would drive me bonkers before too long, I think. I often talk to folks that I meet on the street, in store checkout lines, etc., often in a rather humorous fashion (and seldom get rebuffed), but I suspect that I'd do less of that if I shared house with someone.

I've said for a time that usually when someone says that it's getting too much to look after (or inhabit, due to stairs, etc.) their current home (usually a house), often they either buy a condo or rent a townhouse or apt., which may last for a rather short interim, possibly 1 - 10 years, and if it's a matter of buying a place, they might not see the value increase much more than real estate fees, depending on several variables.

Another issue is that, when one becomes somewhat disabled, quite possibly one's loved one would need to dispose of a house, condo, etc. which would quite possibly be more problem than clearing out a rented apartment.

Then many move into a residential home where a number of services are provided, or a nursing home ...

... but those beasts are really quite expensive.

I've thought for some time that it makes a lot of sense for two, or four or more people to live together in a large home, with several bedrooms, plus various spaces where people could do things, and almost necessarily being a one-floor arrangement. Three wouldn't work - two would gang up on the third one.

And it wouldn't work to have several move into one person's house: that person would always say that, since this was her/his home ... that s/he was the boss!

They say that intellectual stimulation helps to fend off alzheimer's, and one would get it in such a circumstance.

There would be shared chores, so each would have much less responsibility (and shared chores are much less onerous that stuff that one is stuck with doing alone). With some of the savings that would be achieved, they could have a person come in for cleaning, etc., if they chose.

There would be a major increase in safety: if someone fell over and needed help or had some kind of a spell, others would know about it very soon, and some decision could be made on the spot as to whether they could take care of it themselves ... or whether they need to call the ill person's caregiver ... or call "911" - right now!

Plus, it would be a heck of a lot less expensive than each living in her/his own digs ... and a whale of a lot less so than moving into a residential home ... let alone a nursing home (and it would likely delay the need to move into one of them).

People say ... "It won't work - they'll fight" ... and you know how set in their ways old folks can get.

I'd think that it would need to be some people who knew one another well, and to keep their former place intact for a few weeks or months, as it would likely become evident rather soon whether the shared realtionship was going to be successful, and someone who wasn't fitting in could return to their former life while making future plans (unmolested?).

It might be a good idea for some kind of agency, e.g. religious, to set up such an arrangement and make it available, as many of the inhabitants would not be part of such an arrangement for a long period, and, apart from a bomb blast, people sharing in such a fashion would not all be leaving at the same time.

ole joyful ... frugal, as always: nice to make a nickel do a dollar's worth of work: part of the missionary's (informal) training plan

I can't imagine living with other people, been married 47 years, been there done that. LOL

BTW I read in the paper that stimulation of the brain does not help.

I lived in a Town House for 23 years..everything was taken care of..I moved to Ohio and bought a house that has Assocoation fees..some how I thought the same would be here but it wasn't. They take care of the lawn, trimming etc. and snow removal. So now I am having the house painted..no fun. So I would say a Patio Home or Condo. That way you wouldn't have to do the outside of your home.