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All of my parents siblings stayed in their homes when they retired and remained there till their deaths. They didn't even consider relocating or a retirement home, the same with my grandfathers and my husband's family. The only exceptions were my mother and husband's mother that had to go in a nursing home for Alzheimer's.
Today many people relocate and buy a retirement home. Have you noticed this in your family?
Yes and no.
My mom and several siblings are still living in their homes of many years. My wife and I moved to another state to live in a 'golf community'. It depends on a person's means and plans. As long as a person is content it shouldn't be a big deal.
My parents and uncle/aunt remained in the same houses (bought post-war) all their lives and never a peep about living anywhere else. Ditto for my ex's parents and their siblings.
I have no siblings but of the friends that I currently have, in "our" age group, none have expressed any plans to relocate anywhere out of this area. This is probably because all of them have family members and/or offspring with or without grandchildren who live within an hour's drive.
I have one friend who together with her husband owned a nursery until the late 1990s when they were in their mid fifties. They had a condo in Florida for years and would always spend January and February there in the "off season"; after they closed the nursery they spent the entire winter there (Oct-April) and then came back up north for the summers. They had grown kids and grandchildren here, and those would visit them in Florida on school vacations. After the grandchildren started hitting double digits they decided to sell the house here (property taxes had gotten ridiculous anyhow) and just live full-time in Florida.
Another friend "time shares" a Florida condo with her brother (both retired) and would love to retire down south permanently but her husband doesn't want to. He very recently was diagnosed with emphysema and the doctor said that the hot humid Florida summers would not be the best for him, so they will probably continue to retire up here.
I've no desire to move, am happy where I am. The thought of ever being in a retirement home or senior community anywhere makes me gag. Absolutely not for me. I need my separate SFH and my privacy.
We've had an opposite sort of interpretation to retirement in my family.
The parents and their siblings all moved to retirement communities in the middle of nowhere. Lovely places with plenty of amenities, and all for a low, low price.
It was great for a few decades, and then they all started to hit their 90s and have serious illnesses. When emergencies started happening, it really struck home how difficult and time consuming it was for family members to get to their side.
Having now lived through this with several of my parent's generation, my generation is the one staying in place. Or, some of has have chosen to move to smaller towns, but we choose places that are within an easy drive of family members. And we're all choosing places that have hospitals within an easy drive, because that was another thing my parents didn't do, and it was a mistake in those last awful years of their illnesses.
We are in our 2nd retirement community and would not live in an all-age community under any circumstances.
Both this place and the previous one are condos. I never want to own a private house again.
Our kids live in the pacific northwest and our grandkids in the northeast, they all like to come visit the old folks here in Florida.
The "best" retirement place is in the eye of the beholder.
Most of the people I worked with retired to a new home in a warmer and lower tax state. As for my and my wife's parents they stayed in the same home. Most if not all of their friends did the same unless they had to go to a "retirement home" for medical reasons.
I had an eye-opening talk with a Ukrainian woman about retirement. She said in Ukraine, there are no retirement homes, people get old and are simply part of the extended family. They wind up hating each other. Whoa.
Then I thought about it. When social attitudes and customs are rolling over faster than the generations, you have a severe escalation of conflict potential. So, is it a good idea to have several generations trying to live their lifestyle in close proximity?
We live in a condo complex with a very diverse group of people including Asians and folks from India. What I notice from this group is that oftentimes their elderly parents are given a spare bedroom to live out their golden years. Normally the kids pay all their parents bills and other expenses out of a sense of obligation for having raised them to adulthood.
All of my parents siblings stayed in their homes when they retired and remained there till their deaths. They didn't even consider relocating or a retirement home, the same with my grandfathers and my husband's family. The only exceptions were my mother and husband's mother that had to go in a nursing home for Alzheimer's.
Today many people relocate and buy a retirement home. Have you noticed this in your family?
I have no plans to relocate anywhere. Unless I have some serious health issues of course, this is the house I plan to be living in the rest of my life.
I know lots of people that have relocated to a home that requires much less care, or a less challenging climate. I think that has always been the case for those that could afford to do so.
My parents, ages 91 & 86, still live in the same house I grew up in. They've been there for 62 years.
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