Retirement housing

[Anonymous]

1 bd condo plus den. It doesn’t make sense to pay for a 3bd for visitors. It would be much cheaper to just pay for hotels when they visit.

[Anonymous]

Can you get a long term rental at the beach instead of buying some place?

I don't agree that you should get a 1 br and have your college aged kids sleep on an air mattress. They need a "home" to come home to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Trouble with condos is maint is charge by SF in most of them having a 3 bedroom is expensive with two bedrooms empty most of time.

Not only this but there are always the possibility of expensive special assessments if they are not properly maintained or the HOA does not properly manage its money. My friend at the beach is facing a $50k special assessment and will have to get a loan to finance it.

Personally I’d keep the beach house. I love day to day beach life and I’ve done everything DC has to offer. And I’d also look at a winter place further south.

[Anonymous]

Personally I’d keep the current house and ditch the beach house. In a decade, that beach house is going to be an albatross around your neck what with increased insurance costs and lowered values making it more difficult to sell. Get out now while the getting is good and plan a yearly family vacation to the beach with the money you save. Would be a better way to facilitate adult children visiting as well.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, everyone. It's actually helpful to think these through with a bunch of strangers!

I agree with the poster who said that adult children need to have a "home" to come home to. Yes, that's important to me also. If it weren't for climate change, I'd just make our beach house (which is a block from the beach but looks like a traditional house) our home. But we know we need to sell it within the next decade to avoid the mess that our island is going to become.

I'll keep looking for options. Maybe we can find a small townhouse for what our current house would sell for. It's partly those crazy expensive HOA costs that seem to be pricing us out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Consider how likely you are to continue to want to split time between two residences in the future as you age. Many people would choose instead to select a single location with the atmosphere, amenities, etc. they value most, and just vacation elsewhere from time to time for as long as they feel they both want to and physically can do so easily enough. It's probably a mistake to assume that retirement will be just like your working life except without the job and with just more leisure time; you'll be aging, with all that implies, including the potential to lose interest in relatively frequent moves between homes and the energy and focus required to maintain them both.

You might elect to begin planning for the long-term now, with a view towards access to medical care and aging in place over time. Maybe both your current homes are ideal for that, if you're honest with yourself maybe they're not.

OP here. Good points. We know we want the beach house for the short term. Love it there and it has become a second home and community in recent years. But the medical and better investment is here for sure. I just really hate to let go of the beach house at the same time that we finally have the freedom to enjoy it. Looking for an intermediary solution for perhaps 2 years. It probably means continuing to work, though, but maybe moving from in person to remote work would take the sting out a bit.

[Anonymous]

I would wait until all the college age kids finish college, and then make a decision.

Right now, your kids will be coming back home for holidays and maybe summers, and need a place to stay. After graduation and starting work, they probably won't have time to see you very much.

Stay in your current house until they all graduate, and then move to whatever retirement location you would like. Be sure if it's not big enough to fit your kids, that there are local affordable hotels and rentals available.

[Anonymous]

pp mentioned, "home" to come home to ... My parent's moved to an area I had no connection with, as soon as I graduated from high school. Yes, it was sad. But I felt it jump-started my adult life. Much more than my college peers, I was planning early for: where will I live this summer and what will I be employed doing to bring in money to pay for my housing. How do I prepare for this. Same with even greater focus on where/how will I support myself after college graduation

[Anonymous]

Reading your other posts: I would sell the beach house while you can get $$ for it. Stay in your current house until all kids graduate from college, and then consider selling your current house and picking your retirement locations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:pp mentioned, "home" to come home to ... My parent's moved to an area I had no connection with, as soon as I graduated from high school. Yes, it was sad. But I felt it jump-started my adult life. Much more than my college peers, I was planning early for: where will I live this summer and what will I be employed doing to bring in money to pay for my housing. How do I prepare for this. Same with even greater focus on where/how will I support myself after college graduation

I'm that PP. That's good for you, but my kids would not feel that way especially because their friends are here. It's one thing for the parents to move away after you graduate from college when you , as you say, "jump start your life", but when the kids are still in college, my kids would like a home to come home to and visit with their friends over the summer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks, everyone. It's actually helpful to think these through with a bunch of strangers!

I agree with the poster who said that adult children need to have a "home" to come home to. Yes, that's important to me also. If it weren't for climate change, I'd just make our beach house (which is a block from the beach but looks like a traditional house) our home. But we know we need to sell it within the next decade to avoid the mess that our island is going to become.

I'll keep looking for options. Maybe we can find a small townhouse for what our current house would sell for. It's partly those crazy expensive HOA costs that seem to be pricing us out.

if you think that the beach house value will diminish in the future because of increasing chances of flooding, you probably ought to sell now before that becomes a reality. Waiting is market timing, and means taking on the risk that your timing will be off. If you wait too long to try to sell, the property may be unmarketable by then. Part of your retirement financial planning should be the adoption of a suitable retirement risk profile for all your investments, arguably including your beach house since it's not your primary residence. With the cessation of income from employment, it may not be appropriate to continue to hold on to an asset which looks likely to become more risky as time goes on.

[Anonymous]

DC itself is a swamp prone to flooding so selling beach house and moving to DC if we really had global warming makes no sense.

Reality is it moved an inch or two a year. You and your kids long dead before anything happens

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:#3. It's fine.

+1. When your kids are fresh out of college this is fine and as they get older they’ll probably be happier staying at a hotel

[Anonymous]

Either rent out the beach house for income, or dump it. Medical care sucks by the beach for retirees.

[Anonymous]

Where can you live on one floor (doesn’t have to be a one story, but where you have bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and laundry on one floor so you don’t have to do stairs) and have good access to medical care? That’s what you’re going to want in the longer term. If you can do that in your house, keep the house. If not, keep on the lookout for a good condo and be ready to move when what you want comes up. You’re not in a rush now.