Retirees Spend a Lot of Time and Money to Buy Their Forever Home. Then They Sell It. (friend, years)
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Not so much in the AZ forum but lots in the Phoenix forum.
It certainly is. But if I had to choose between our current Cactus Acres location and The Villages, I'd stay put.
Not always, I grant you, but that's often something people just say. I can't count the number of times I've heard "Let's do lunch sometime." Yet somehow I am still lunch-less.
Well, at least your weight won’t suffer.
It took me a few years to get to know our neighbors. It was the same with my cycling group also. Once I broke the barriers, it was much, much better. We have two different neighbors from PHX who are excited about flying out next year for a visit. A cycling couple just bought a place in Belgium so we’ll go see them soon also.
OTOH, I also went through a ham radio phase, a motorcycle phase, a kayaking phase and an off-reading phase over my 25 years in Phoenix. I can count the close friends from those activities on one hand. I’m closer to our dog park peeps than people from these activities!
I hope you and hubby can figure it out and I hope we do also. If not, I have no clue where we’d go next.
My husband was talking to a local builder about building home and finding a lot. The builder told him about a man in close neighborhood on large lots who bought a home and now decided he didn’t like it. He wanted to tear it down and build new but he didn’t want to spend the money either. So he was thinking he might divide his 4 acre lot into 4 single lots and use the money to build on 1 himself….
Why he would buy a house he didn’t like I guess was maybe the acreage and thinking he could make money off it…
I don't see why any retiree would buy a gigantic sized house for retirement, maybe a former President or some other important official who would need to entertain, but for most people, you need something smaller.
I like the small 1950s ranches that are mostly being torn down these days. They're just right for a retired couple except maybe the yards can be too big. They usually have three bedrooms so there's extra space for relatives who come to visit, the kitchens are okay and -wow-they actually have a window! You can update the kitchen if you want to though. The bathrooms are good in most cases and, again, they have a window! Everything is on one level and you could install a stacking washer and dryer, maybe inside a closet.
Capes are good too because they usually have a bedroom downstairs plus a tv room/office/extra bedroom. Good living room and kitchen. And they have two bedrooms upstairs that you don't have to use but they are great for guests. Stairs get to be a real drag and a danger as you get older so I don't understand the people who buy huge houses with staircases. It won't be that long before they have to purchase an expensive and slow stairlift.
During DHs career we bought and sold 17 times. Retired at 52. One kid moved home to go to grad school. Then the other one came. Mom came for 25 years. We want room for each kid should they need to come home again. Things change. We downsized at 72. I told son if I ever said move again he was to have me committed.
Now we need to move to help DD care for her 95 year old in laws who bought the house next door to her. The next house will have room for whoever comes home. Being trapped in a 10x12 bedroom is not my idea of fun.
To Rick Brown and Jeanne Brown, finding a forever home has seemingly taken forever.
In just five years, the couple—he’s 71 and she’s 72—bought or built two different houses that they planned to live in for the rest of their lives. But their tastes changed—so they decided to pick up stakes both times. Now they have settled on a third home that seems to be their final choice.
If there is one takeaway, Mr. Brown says, never use the words “forever home.”
Sometimes, even with the best-laid plans things don't work out so well.
The Browns second "forever home", Asheville NC, didn't work out because they couldn't break into the social scene. So they sold their Asheville house and moved to...(drumroll, please)...The Villages!
It is because validating externally is fundamentally flawed.
We are currently living in what we thought was out forever home. A two story but with the master down. Autistic son lives with us and has a nice bedroom and bonus room upstairs. However, due to his social awkwardness and limited interests he has not ben able to make friends here and absolutely hates it. The neighborhood is very upscale; we are the poor ones here, LOL. For his benefit we are moving back to the Triangle in NC. Will still be in a two story home but a little smaller than what we have now. I don't like ranch homes and we are mountain hikers, so stairs are no problem. We are no spring chickens, but it's what we have to do. The good thing is that our neighborhood is so desirable we will make a profit.
I don't see why any retiree would buy a gigantic sized house for retirement, maybe a former President or some other important official who would need to entertain, but for most people, you need something smaller.
We intended to downsize in retirement to make our life simpler, but it didn't turn out that way.
We raised our daughter in a relatively high-maintenance, fully custom 5300sf multi-story home with an 1800sf garage/shop on about 1.5 acres in the foothills above Silicon Valley. In retirement we thought we wanted low-maintenance, lock-and-leave living --
-- so we bought a 3300sf condo in with a 4 car private garage & elevator that went directly from our garage into the condo--
-- but we discovered we just were not "small space" people. So we built a custom 7200-ish sf 3 bedroom home with an 1190 sf garage/shop.
For our ski vacation home, we started with a 1150sf 3bd/2ba condo, then upsized to a 3300-ish sf home (plus another 800sf separate MIL unit above the garage), and then upsized again to a 7500-ish sf home, all in the same community.
Pre-pandemic, we entertained quite a bit, including hosting fundraising events for our favorite charities. Now that we're in the pandemic, we haven't had the large gatherings, but are planning a mid-sized event with proof of vaccination required.
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Many pre-retirees plan on relocating to a home where the master bedroom is downstairs, or where the entire house is on a single floor. We prefer the multi-story homes, as they give us more exercise - we go up & down the stairs quite a bit and that helps with muscle tone and conditioning. We "future proofed" by installing an elevator designed to accept a wheelchair with the legs extended. We do use the elevator every now and then; in fact, our elderly cat, prior to passing, would go to the elevator door & let us know he wanted a ride up to the upstairs.
Last edited by RationalExpectations; 11-22-2021 at 08:43 AM..
We’re in our 3rd place since my DH retired (I had already retired a few years earlier.)
1. Sold our big house in DFW area and moved to an amenity rich hotel condo in walkable area near a local train hub so if needed we’d have that for transport in addition to our cars. Loved the place but missed having a private yard for the dog….also all our neighbors still worked jobs so no real sense of community.
2. Kept the condo but 2 years later bought a house in Las Vegas area in a 55+ community. After 2 years decided we liked the community but not that house. So, sold that last summer….
3. Bought another house in same Las Vegas valley community. Like it much better but continue to look…maybe there’s another house out there even better!
I enjoy moving….
Our neighbor's house is for sale, in case you're interested. Great views of The Strip!
Ha Ha. We looked in Acaya when we first moved here. I don’t have $32M for a house!
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