Elderly Housing Wider than Ever Before

As we residents age, we grow wiser—at least we hope we will. If we take good care of ourselves, are lucky enough to have inherited good genes, and have some luck, too, we hope to be able to stay physically and mentally active long past many of the birthdays that used to mark old age—or even “advanced old age.”

But if wisdom does actually accrue along the way, even the spryest seniors eventually begin to consider whether it might not be a good idea to explore some of today’s alternative post-retirement residential directions. Advil or not, the most physically active seniors will tell you the morning after a full round of golf or a couple of sets of tennis: ouch! Even copious amounts of positive thinking can’t match the persuasive power of aching joints and muscles. Some accommodations to Father Time are going to be called for…

It turns out that on this front, there is a lot of good news developing out there. Probably because the massive wave of Baby Boomers is sweeping into traditional retirement age, more and more residential options are opening up. Local residents approaching retirement have more choices than ever before. Some of the major headings include—    

·       Staying with family. This used to be the hands-down leading choice when infirmity was at hand: moving in with care-taking relatives (or the reverse). This can be a terrific solution when the family situation fits and doesn’t create unworkable demands on family members.

·       Roommates. Sometimes sharing living quarters is an alternative that isn’t given much consideration, but a homeowner who could use help with daily living chores can choose to share their home in exchange for help with shopping, cooking, cleaning, etc.

·       Board-and-Care Homes are usually small-scale: residences that provide room and board and varying degrees of daily activity support.

·       Congregate Housing caters to seniors able to take care of themselves; providing meals, communal activities, and/or housekeeping services. Retirement Communities can add resort-level facilities and activities into the mix.

·       Assisted Living residences—all the way to full Nursing Homes—provide levels of care from minimal all the way to skilled nursing support.

·       Continuing Care Retirement Communities—are designed to meet the reality that residence and assistance needs change over time. CCRCs consist of separate apartment-style or condominium units as well as full assisted-living facilities. Residents can move from one to the other if more independent living becomes impractical. Residents pay an entrance fee and monthly charges (they can be hefty)—but CCRCs have the advantage of allowing residents to remain in a familiar community at junctures when a greater dislocation would be much more stressful.

Of course, many local seniors are not about to even consider moving away from the area, choosing instead to simply look into downsizing—or switching to a more [knee-friendly] stairless neighborhood home. For those and other real estate endeavors, I’m here to help!

Real Estate Listings Are Designed For Simplicity

 

The first stop for anyone looking for a new home in the local area—or for anyone who is even mildly curious about what properties are currently available—is the local real estate listings. Like those you find here on my site, today’s online real estate listings are updated regularly all across the internet. It’s a coordinated system that appears deceptively simple on the surface, bringing you what you ask for from within the mind-bogglingly vast amount of detail that encompasses all the properties being offered throughout the country at that moment.  

When a prospective buyer goes online to get a feel for the local properties being offered, the real estate listings she or he sees appear to be straightforward enough. The information is clearly formatted, presented in a way that makes it easy to compare with other properties’ attributes. That apparent simplicity might be a little bit misleading, as anyone who has recently put their own home on the market knows.  

Before any listing goes online, all the property’s physical details have to be determined and verified. It’s your agent’s job to make sure the paperwork is complete—including the legal documentation that says, yes, this property is for sale at this amount. The 2015 NAR^® handbook on multiple listing policy (MLS) fills 152 pages for good reason. ‘Under the hood’ of the neighborhood listings is the structure of legal agreements that stitch together the cooperative framework that enables the smooth functioning of the modern real estate industry. Stripped of all its legal bells and whistles, it’s really an agreement among brokers and agents who agree to the way work will be apportioned and commissions shared. 

As you might expect, those 152 pages also cover some special kinds of real estate listings. Homeowners, for instance, can create local real estate listings that are not made public. This is done when the seller withholds consent for a listing to be published within the MLS compilation. Although that might seem to be a particularly bad idea—like a candidate running for office who decides it would be a good idea to keep his name off the ballot—there are circumstances when it makes sense. Such ‘office exclusive’ listings can serve a useful purpose when maximum confidentiality is important. Celebrities and other public figures sometimes use this approach, as do sellers who’d rather not publicize their plan to jump ship until it’s a fait accompli.

All this is made as simple and straightforward as possible for the benefit of all. If it were too complex, sellers and buyers would hesitate to get involved. The market would suffer. In fact, today’s local listings—especially as they are presented online, on sites like this one— represent a standout example of how technology can make even complicated commercial undertakings easier and more efficient than they have ever been. To find your next home, for instance, you need only check out the current local listings, and then there’s only one other thing you have to do: call me up!