Affordable retirement (Luray, Shenandoah: condominium, credit check, how much)

[marilynf64]

Looking to retire in central VA in either a mixed ages townhouse,condominium location or an active, planned retirement community. Priorities include outdoor recreational activities (hiking, biking, fishing), some culture, access to shopping and dining. Unfortunately, been only able to find "senior" communities online with housing pricetags of $400K and up. Price range is closer to $150 to 200K. Any suggestions of locations to explore? Thanks!

[Mike from back east]

Marilyn: See my post in the Other section on Tips and Techniques for finding a new place to live. We lived in VA, near Dulles Airport for 30 years, and we like the rural parts of the state. If possible, consider the I-81 corridor, as I have a post on that topic, also in this VA folder. One of the lovliest parts of the state is the "Valley of Virginia" aka the Shenandoah River valley. I wish everyone could see the area of Luray, VA in the spring when it's a shade of green that would make an Irishman green with envy.

After that, sit down with a map of Virginia and use www.realtor.com (broken link) to look at houses in an area, either by town name or by zip code (zip code look-up is explained in the Tips posting). You can also use the data here on city-data to look at housing costs and much other data. Become a data junkie.

TIP: Larger public libraries have lots of data, call/visit a librarian, they can do wonders for you, they're free, and Librarians are on my list of Unsung Hero's.

Use your word processor to write a "form letter" and save it. You'll send this to realtors. Do this and you'll only have to type it once, then just cut and paste it when you email realtors with questions. There are many small towns in central VA, you may well send this to 15-50 realtors, so only type it once. Their service is free, make use of it. (I'm not in the business in any way.)

In this form letter, tell them your age group, how many adults/children are to live in the home, whats the ballpark income level, any pets?, how much equity can you bring to the table to buy down the mortgage, etc.

State your needs very clearly, e.g. do you want/need:
* a one-level house with no stairs (older knees hate stairs)
* is a basement a must for you (finished or unfinished?)
* what sort of garage, if any (attached, detached, carport)
* single family, TH, or condo?
* schools (do you need to be near schools or prefer to be far away from the noise, traffic and litter)
* nearby hospital? specialized medical facility?
* in-town location? space for horses?

(Don't divulge SSN or bank account data until well down the road, they don't need this unless they do a credit check, and that doesn't seem appropriate for your early inquiries to just check out whats available in any given area. If they ask, decline and go elsewhere.)

The realtors have access to data and listings that you can' get via realtor.com (especially for rural areas). The more data you give, the more accurate their help will be. During our searches, we emailed lots of realtors to get more data on houses, as a lot of the listings on realtor.com don't have all the data we wanted, basement status being one area they seem to omit often.

s/Mike

PS: If my posting, or those of others, are useful, please click on the "scales of justice" in upper right corner and leave positive feedback.

[Northern Virginia Agent]

Marilyn:

Unfortunately, for that price range, it would be almost impossible to find any decent housing accomodations, i.e. active, planned retirement community in and around fairfax county or prince wiliam county. You'll need something fairly new with low maintenance. Culpepper, fredericksburg & further west might be a good start for you. Moderator cut: soliciting