What not to do when planning that retirement dream home
I am hanging out at the hospital this morning with my 84-year-old mother, Nena, who is scheduled for leg surgery.
Anyway, it has me thinking about my parents - who I adore - but who have never been the savviest customers when it comes to real estate.
That's a long story, better told another time, or maybe not at all.
But one lesson I can take from their real estate misadventures is what not to do once you start putting together plans for that retirement dream home.
It's very simple: Don't build or buy anything with more than one story.
My parents are Cape lovers, and, back in the late 1970s, when real estate was much cheaper, they bought a ranch in need of work in the town of Harwich. It even came with a nice ocean view - though distant enough to avoid any stray waves or storm surges.
My mother has a keen eye for colors and interior design - combined with some basic remedial work, the ranch soon went from a dingy and musty 1950s party house to a bright little gem of a home.
So when my father retired in the early 1990s, my parents put together an ambitious plan to turn the modest range into the dream home for their golden years.
And it turned out to be beautiful, with a design that made the most of the ocean views.
But there was only one problem that I, a disheveled young newspaper reporter still in his 20s would never have fathomed - it was now two stories.
A decade later, the inevitable mobility crisis began to set in. By that time my parents, worried about expenses, had traded in the dream home for a townhouse in a neighboring town.
As far as downsizing goes, it was not a bad decision necessarily, but the decision to trade a two-story home for a three story condo simply compounded matters when my mother found herself immobilized after knee surgery.
So began a steady downward spiral in terms of mobility for both my parents, culminating in their decision a couple years ago to sell the condo and move to a single floor apartment in a senior housing complex in the western suburbs.
It's just the right fit for them now as they roll along, side by side with their walkers, down hallways and across the campus of their new home.
Yet while both are happy now, the journey, at least when it comes to the real estate side of things, turned out be prolonged and painful, both emotionally and financially.
With hindsight, it's easy to look back and see what should have been done. I am sure my three little ones, now six, four and two, will be doing the same someday as well.
Still, I wonder about the road not taken here. What if they had simply added onto to their Cape ranch, but kept everything on one story? First, it would have saved them money - the cost of putting on a second story turned out to be considerably more expensive than my parents had anticipated.
But as importantly, it would have been more of a sustainable, long-term living option.
So build that dream home. But just keep in all on one floor.
