Category: Retirement Real Estate
Buying your retirement home might be a lot easier than any house you ever purchased before, thanks to an ever-expanding list of internet tools. Not only do new websites keep cropping up in familiar areas, but they are arriving with new services as well. This article will provide a quick roundup of the online services that can make purchasing your active adult or 55+ community a lot easier.
Mortgages
Type in "mortgages" into your search bar and you will find companies eager to offer you a mortgage. Given the recent publicity about mortgage predators, you should tread carefully. Get more than one opinion, shop locally, and get the opinion of your legal adviser before you act.
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Published on April 27, 2009
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Category: Retirement Real Estate
It's April so it must be Home Inspection month. If you are thinking about buying a new home for retirement this is a good time to get acquainted with the basic items to look for when buying a home. This is particularly true in this era of short sales and foreclosures, where preventative maintenance probably wasn't kept up with. Editor's note: We have to confess we felt a little superior when we saw this topic in a headline. But guess what - most of these concerns hadn't even occurred to us.
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Published on April 21, 2009
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Category: Baby Boomer Retirement Issues
You know you are a force when industry experts call a conference to discuss how to best serve your needs. The National Association of Home Builders is hosting a conference in Philadelphia (April 27-29), “Building for Boomers & Beyond: 50+ Housing Symposium”. The conference will bring together builders and a…
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Published on April 20, 2009
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Category: Baby Boomer Retirement Issues
We're the generation that thinks we own the trademark on youth, but now ironically headed for retirement. A lot of experts are trying to figure out how we will impact the multi-billion dollar retirement market when we hit it in force in the next few years.
Many experts agree that a significant portion of baby boomers will thumb our noses at the stereotypical retirements of our parents. To those of us who grew up in the Age of Aquarius, selling the split level and spending our days playing golf and shuffleboard at Leisure Acres is just not very appealing.
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Published on April 15, 2009
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Category: Active adult communities
In a proposed merger that will create the largest homebuilder in America, Pulte Homes will combine with homebuilder Centex in an all stock deal. Pulte Homes is the parent company of the Anthem and Del Webb brands, the latter which brings you the huge Sun City active adult communities…
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Published on April 10, 2009
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Category: Work and Volunteering
It's happened to so many people lately. Folks in their 50's and 60's go in to work one day and find themselves retired by the end of it. While they might have looked forward to that time off a few years ago, this news, combined with their plummeting retirement portfolios, is frequently a major cause of concern and even desperation.
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Published on April 7, 2009
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Category: Green Retirement Communities
No, it's not something you add to the wash to get out those pesky grass stains you used to get playing touch football. Nor is it a St. Patty's day breath-freshener. Greenwash is what happens to you when you succumb to a developer who promises you a "green" house in a sustainable community, only to move in and find the Chinese wallboard smells like rotten eggs.
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Published on March 31, 2009
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Category: International Retirement
Up until now one of the best strategies for a lower cost retirement was to head south of the border, Mexico way. But escalating drug violence in Mexico is causing many Americans to either stay put in the U.S. or move a bit further to a central American country like Costa Rica or Uruguay in South America.
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Published on March 24, 2009
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Category: Retirement Real Estate
March 23 - Retirees either looking to sell their existing homes or see their retirement portfolios reclaim some of their losses got some good news today. Sales of existing homes in the U.S. increased 5.1% in February over January, helping give Wall Street its best day in months. Sales of single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops were off 4.6% vs. the year earlier February. Prices continued to decline in February as the median selling price of a U.S. home fell to $165,400, off 15% from the year earlier period.
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Published on March 23, 2009
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Category: Baby Boomer Retirement Issues
Our friend and colleague Michael Pollick has been writing a fascinating series about baby boomer retirements in the Sarasota Herald Tribune. And we are very pleased to have one of our quotes featured in the headline of this week's article: "Arizona, a Fresher Florida?".
Michael has spent a lot of time researching where boomers are retiring and which states are doing the most to attract them. He has found that his own state, Florida, is starting to lose retirement share to upstart states like Texas, Tennessee, the Carolinas, etc.; which have active marketing campaigns to attract retirees (such as certified retirement community programs).
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Published on March 17, 2009
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