September 15 - An inevitable but painful result of the slowing of the housing market is that many new retirees are having to postpone planned moves to a new retirement community. The stumbling block is of course their inability to sell their primary residence, typically most retirees’ biggest assets. A September 13 article in the Housing Bubble Blog recounts the woes in several important California markets. The article mentions the limbo-like situation this has created for Ken Gonzales and his wife, forcing them to postpone their plans to downsize to a retirement community. Unfortunately they cannot get their price for their four-bedroom house in Riverside’s Orangecrest community.
The same situation is playing out in the East as well. A good friend of ours and his wife have now been waiting 2 years to sell their beachfront house in Madison Connecticut. Their plan is to use the proceeds to build their dream house on a lot they have already purchased in South Carolina. They get offers, but no one responds to negotiation requests or comes close enough to their magic number.
This popular blog entry generated scads of blog postings from people who scoffed at the woes of other people quoted in the blog, generally blaming greed as the cause of their troubles.
Obviously, buyers who do not need to sell their primary residence in order to move are in the driver’s seat in this economy.