Consider all of your potential living options before aging in place.

Aging in place means that you’ll remain in your home for the later years of your life instead of moving to a smaller one, assisted living, or retirement community.

There’s no doubt that there’s comfort in staying in the home you lived in for many years instead of moving to a new and unfamiliar environment. However, this may not be the best option for everyone. The potential financial drawbacks to remodeling or renovating might be more costly than the long-term benefits. If you were in the same house 40 years ago, you may have had a growing family and purchased a four-bedroom home on a large piece of property in a child-friendly neighborhood. It was a great choice at the time, and you still love that home, but now your family has grown and moved out, so you don’t need all that space.

“Renovations are just part of what you need to make aging in place work.”

You might be thinking about taking some equity out of your house and converting one of the bedrooms into a massive master bedroom and another room into an open reading room or a craft room. You might also be thinking about cutting back on lawn maintenance. That all sounds wonderful in the short term, and you may really enjoy the new upgrades, but you’ll still have to climb the stairs, pay to heat and cool a house that’s larger than you need, and continue fixing all the things that start to go wrong with a 40-year-old home. Renovations are just part of what you need to make aging in place work. While it’s typically less expensive to remain in your home than to pay for assisted living, you’ll need to plan for how you’ll manage maintenance and care for your home and yourself.

At some point, the time may come when you decide to sell the house. That can pose a big challenge if you’ve already taken cash value out to do remodeling. You may have lowered the value of your home. Families moving into your neighborhood are probably similar to what your family was like 40 years ago. They probably have young children and need the extra bedrooms. Before you spend the money to remodel or renovate your current house so you can age in place, let’s get together to determine if it’s truly your best option.

If you have any questions about selling your home, feel free to give us a call at (602) 920-0306. We look forward to hearing from you.