moving in retirement

Is 55+ Active Adult Community Right for You?

boardwalk on the water-active adult communities

There are 76 million baby boomers born between 1946 and 1964 and many of us looking forward to our next phase of life – retirement.

Millions of baby boomers are very well off. On the other hand, many baby boomers will be facing a tough financial future. Because our savings are low, our 401(k) portfolios have been reduced, some of us took forced retirement early and almost no one is getting paid pensions.

But the main question is where you are going to live in retirement still valid never matter your financial situation.

Everyone has their own take on retirement lifestyle and retirement living preferences. But today many boomers are interested in moving to an active adult or 55+ community rather than retiring in a traditional neighborhood.

When you reach the age of 55, you have a new choice of lifestyle. It is a neighborhood where people live with neighbors who are at the same stage of their lives. Many have raised their children and are ready to focus on their new phase of life without the responsibilities of parenthood and careers.

As you start exploring your retirement living options you may find that active adult communities are not different than any other residential community, besides their age restriction. Most of them are designed for a retirement-friendly and low-maintenance lifestyle.

These 55 and over “age-restricted” communities typically mean that someone in the residence must be at least 55 years old. But moving to this type of retirement community can offer you plenty of benefits when it comes to amenities, services, and social life.

If you are planning to move to a 55+ community, you can choose from different types of these organizations.

Types of 55+ active adult communities:

There are several different types of 55+ communities to choose from.

Active senior communities. These 55+ communities are designed for those who live a more active lifestyle. They offer plenty of various activities such as swimming, biking, hiking, etc.

Golf and resort communities. These communities offer a resort-like environment with high-quality amenities. Your lifestyle will be like a year-round vacation living on a beautiful gold course.

Luxury communities. In this type of 55+ communities, you will find larger homes with more refined amenities, impressive landscapes, and luxury features available to their residents.

Gated communities. This type of community offers all the bonuses of a 55+ community with added security and enhanced privacy.

These types of communities for active adults make life easy and enjoyable each day. However, is a 55+ active adult community the right choice for you?

The Positives

Convenient Amenities

Perhaps the best benefit of living in 55+ communities is that they provide plenty of amenities. The community will give you many opportunities to socialize, exercise and stay active in your retirement years.

Amenities that may be provided include:

Golf courses
Fitness centers
Swimming pools
Tennis courts
Dining areas
Social events
Arts and crafts classes

In addition to the amenities, the community residents often organize social events, affinity clubs, volunteer groups, and other ways to stay active and involved.

Social life

When you move away from a neighborhood where you have lived a long time, you would appreciate the opportunity to make new friends.

In active adult communities, residents are likely to be in the same place in life. Everyone worked hard for many years, raised a family, and now is looking to enjoy a relaxed and comfortable retirement.

It will be easy to find people with whom you have so much in common and who want to develop a great friendship.

Active lifestyle

When you retire and have plenty of time on your hands you would like to have neighbors who share your interests and activities.

When you have the more available time, it is easy to make your schedules more in sync with others. Each community has different activities and amenities, you just need to pick and choose what you want to do.

Your community may often present many opportunities for activities like potluck dinners, parties at the clubhouse, regular board and card games, book clubs, and organized outings for residents.

man and woman doing yoga - 55+ active adult communities

The best part is that you do not need to wait for weekends or take time off from work to go on a trip or schedule some activities. You can explore new hobbies, meet like-minded people, and have a varied and interesting life. People you meet will like to stay busy, social, active, and have fun.

Low Maintenance

This might be the best-selling point for people who choose to move to an adult active community.

If you are tired of lawn care, yard work, exterior upkeep, and everything else in between, you might find that low maintenance and hassle-free living is appealing.

There is no more yard work, snow-blowing, raking leaves, or painting the exterior. Many residents choose to downsize from the big homes where they raised their families and move to smaller homes with less maintenance.

The interior maintenance and daily upkeep are still the responsibilities of the homeowner. However, as a resident, you will enjoy your life without the burden and hassle of dealing with your home exterior repairs and maintaining the yard. Your homeowner’s association (HOA) fees will cover the costs of community maintenance and your home exterior.

Typically, the homeowner’s association provides all services to keep the community beautiful and pristine.

Quiet and peaceful environment

Adult active communities often offer a more peaceful and quieter environment than residential neighborhoods with families that have young children.

Adult children and grandchildren are of course welcome to visit. But overall, the requirement for residents of 55+ communities is to have a less noisy and more quiet place to live.

Even though you like a kids-free environment, occasionally you might want to host your family including grandchildren. When looking at an active adult community, make sure to learn their policy about having visitors and overnight guests who are younger than 55.

Some communities have restrictions on how many family members can visit and for how long.

Affordable cost of living

Today these types of communities are located in many regions and became very popular.

Also, it triggered more interest from the residential developers and builders. Perhaps, you have an option to move into one of these new construction homes which are built to be more modern and energy efficient.

With the new construction, you can personalize your home by selecting the details, materials, features, and the latest eco-smart technology. This means you can avoid complicated renovations to make your old home more age friendly.

However, if you are planning to move to a retirement community at age 55, you have to consider how the monthly HOA fee fits into your budget. You can only start taking Social Security benefits as early as you turn 62. But that would still leave you with a 7-year gap to fill.

Also, taking money out of a 401(k) plan and IRA before age 59 ½, can trigger tax penalties. Hence, if you are not working full-time or part-time you may have to pull money from your savings accounts, CDs, or even an investment account to cover the cost of living.

Keep in mind, that taking money from your taxable investment account can affect your tax liability. You have to make sure that you have enough money to pay your taxes.

But as you compare the cost of aging in place and moving to a retirement community, you might find out that buying a retirement home in a 55+ community may be a cheaper option.

According to statistics, the average annual spending for people aged 55 to 64 adds up to $57,180 per year ($4,765 per month). It includes the costs of housing, utilities, transportation, food, healthcare, and entertainment.

But if you still want to live independently but with the benefit of added amenities, the average cost of a 55+ community will be between $1,500 – $4,000 per month.

Again, you have to look closely at what you are getting in exchange for what you will be paying. Then compare all this to your current budget and see what you might spend in the future.

The negatives

Homeowners Association (HOA) fees

Most of the adult retirement communities have some form of the homeowner association, and they collect HOA fees from the community members. These dues and fees are used to pay for the community repairs and renovations, and upkeep of the grounds.

Rules and regulations

While the homeowner association (HOA) collects fees from the community members, it also carries out community laws, rules, and regulations. These regulations and rules can be quite broad. If a resident violet a rule, the HOA may impose a fine.

Thus, before moving into the community, consider reading through the rules thoroughly so you will not be surprised by how you may customize your home or can and cannot use the amenities.

No medical care on-site

Most of the active adult communities do not provide any kind of healthcare services as part of your HOA monthly fee. Also, there are no on-site medical facilities.

These communities are mainly created with a focus on independent living rather than healthcare services. If you expect additional services, you can arrange for home care assistance through a third party. But if you need extensive medical care, you may want to look into another community with assisted living medical care.

Lack of age diversity

There is also a lack of age diversity in these types of communities since they are an age-restricted, and at least one member of the household should be 55 or older.

Not everyone finds it appealing to live with mostly old people. If you want to live amongst diverse age groups, you should reconsider moving into this type of environment.

The final words of advice – it is never too late to start finalizing your retirement lifestyle and retirement living options. The earlier you start, the better prepared you will be.

Here are a few related posts you might want to read:

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Where Will You Live When You Retire?

by Maggie 2 Comments

A woman standing in sunflower field-where to live in retirement

Have you thought about where will you live when you retire? I am sure when you are busy with your life, career, kids, vacations, and holidays the everyday day routine keeps your mind away from these thoughts. But when you are getting closer to retirement you may realize that you need to plan for your next phase of life.

Many baby boomers will downsize, sell their homes, and move to a sunny state. But some of us will prefer to retire in place. The reason behind this decision that people love their homes and their communities where they often lived for several decades and feel comfortable to retire there. Even they decide to move it will be not far from their current location. According to the surveys many baby boomers prefer to live closer to kids, family, and friends than to relocate to a warmer climate.

There are a few options for baby boomers to decide on where to live when they retire:

Retire in place
Relocate closer to kids, family, or friends
Relocate to a warmer climate (from New England cold winters)
Move and live abroad

Retire in place.

two women on a bench - where to live in retirement

There are more and more retirees planning on retiring in place instead of relocating. I have read that this trend has become extremely popular in recent years. The baby boomer’s generation is more active and engaged in life and activities than the previous ones. Internet and technology make it easier to keep in touch with the kids, family, friends, and the whole world.

Wider variety of services such as home meal delivery, house cleaning, personal care assistance, paid caregivers and pet care make it easier for seniors to live in their homes independently. This trend is also driven by the growing cost of retirement communities and assisted living facilities.

Deciding on how to retire in place can come with its own challenges. If you want to stay in your own home for the next several decades you will need to make it age friendly. Most of the homes we live in today are not equipped for old age. We need to have fewer stairs and more accessible features in our homes with easy maintenance.

When you grow old you might consider doing some renovations to make your home more accessible:

No-step entry into the home
Grab bars installed in bathrooms and showers
Walk-in shower instead of a traditional bathtub
No-slip flooring to prevent slips and falls
Lower kitchen cabinets for easy access
Raised washer and dryer with adjustable height counter
Electric stairlift
Low maintenance yard, and more

While you might not be able to live independently in your home forever, these changes will help to make your home a safer and more functional place. Some changes could be simple modifications while others are big renovation projects.

According to the Home Advisors, the average cost of remodeling for disability accommodation can range from $5,000 to $20,000.

Home Advisors website.

Aging in Place Article: 18 Features of an Age Friendly Home

Move and live closer to kids and/or family.

women hands on laptop-move closer to kids in retirement

When planning on where to live in retirement, the first choice for many people is to live closer to their kids. According to the surveys, wanting to be closer to a family is one of the most popular reasons for baby boomers to relocate rather than a warmer climate. If you need to relocate to another state or town it might take some planning.

Moving can be expensive in terms of money and time spent. You need to consider many factors when planning for relocation:

Housing cost
Relocation cost
Access to health care facilities

Housing cost is one of the highest retirement expenses.

When you retire you do not need a big house because your kids are grown and live on their own. A bigger home is more expensive, and it is harder to maintain physically. That is why many baby boomers prefer to downsize either by moving to a smaller home or spending less for a home of equal size. It helps to save money on housing and maintenance costs.

Are you planning to buy a new home or prefer to rent while relocating?

If you are planning on buying a new home, you need to think about mortgage financing. What that means you will be carrying mortgage debt well into retirement while you start living on the fixed income.

Besides making a financial decision, you need to think about how it will fit into your retirement lifestyle. If you love to own your place you will have to deal with yard work, leaky faucets, broken A/C, or a water heater.

Renting is an attractive retirement option. Most retirees do not want to deal with maintenance and prefer a maintenance guy or a landlord to solve their problems. In addition to that, some rental apartment buildings have many amenities like swimming pools, gyms, saunas, and entertainment rooms.

Renting is also popular if you want to live closer to your kids but not sure you are ready to spend the rest of your life at that location. If you like to travel, renting has another advantage. You can lock the door and go away without worrying about the yard, home maintenance, or any other things you need to deal with as an owner.

Once you decided to move out of your home you will face the relocation cost. And if you will hire professional movers it will cost you a lot.

Most people feel overwhelmed by the idea of selling home. But moving out adds more anxiety to the whole process. Imagine that you have to take all your possessions, all your memories, and lifestyle you have created over the years and pack it in the boxes. In addition to emotional departure moving out will come with extra expenses.

First, you need to decide what to do with all your belongings – what to keep and what to sell. Next, you need to pack, figure out logistics, and hire movers.

The average moving costs depend on your local area. Usually, local movers charge by an hour. In the Metro Boston area where we live to hire professional movers is expensive. When we decide to move out it will cost us $119 per hour for 2 movers and truck.

According to the American Moving and Storage Association, the average cost of a move is $2,300 within your state and $4,300 between states. But an interstate move could be as high as $7,500 and depends on the amount of stuff you are moving, moving services, and the distance between your old and new homes.

When you think about relocation in retirement, access to good healthcare is a must. At the beginning of your retirement, you probably will be active and healthy and need only routine doctor visits. But as you grow older the access to retirement facilities, hospitals, and transportation for people with disabilities will become a necessity of life.

Relocate to a warmer climate in retirement.

When it comes to relocating, many baby boomers are searching for places with a lower cost of living. Others want a warm climate and beautiful scenery.

If you have lived in areas with cold climate and lots of snow you might want to relocate to a southern state with a warmer climate. If you like fishing and boating, you would prefer to relocate to a place near the river or lake. Finding a perfect retirement spot near the mountains will fit the lifestyle of many people who like to hike.

Taking climate into consideration is important if you want to stay active and involved in things you love to do.

According to statistics, Florida, Arizona, and South Carolina are the three states which see the largest arrival of retirees if you are looking for a warmer climate. Florida takes number one on the list because the Sunshine State has a perfect mixture of beautiful beaches, sunny weather, and low taxes.

When choosing where to relocate make sure to understand how new location and accommodations will fit into your retirement lifestyle. Because there is a difference between a place you loved while vacationing there and a place you will be living for a long time.

Move and live abroad in retirement.

mountain village - vineyards-tractor-move abroad in retirement

Retiring outside of the US is becoming a popular option among baby boomers. Moving abroad may be emotionally and physically difficult, but it can offer an exciting adventure in your golden years. Some of us are dreaming about exploring the rich culture, food, and lifestyle of other countries rather than playing golf or lying on the beach.

However, moving abroad is not only about packing your bags and buying a plane ticket. It is more complicated and needs serious planning.

First, think about how you will receive Social Security benefits. Then, how to withdraw money from your retirement funds if you move outside of the US. Another question is how to pay taxes and what to do with your belongings in the US?

There are other things to consider if you decide to move to a new country. You will need to get a residency visa, open new bank accounts, figure out how to transfer money from the US to your new place. Do not forget to look at the currency exchange rates and see if you will be losing money on the exchange.

Market Watch Article: Retiring Abroad Is a Lot More Than Living at the Beach

Access to good quality healthcare is a must as you get older. So, make sure that your new country has modern medical facilities, well-trained doctors and it must be affordable. Find out if you can join the national healthcare program or need to buy private medical insurance.

One of the most important factors is affordability. When choosing a retirement destination, it is important to move to a country where the cost of living is low enough so you can stretch your retirement savings.

It is hard to imagine that many baby boomers can afford to retire in Italy, France, or Switzerland. These countries may be the most desired to retire to, but they are not cheap. Countries such as Ecuador, Panama, Mexico, and Costa Rica offer low cost of living, solid healthcare, and public transportation system together with established expat communities.

Retiring abroad is not easy and it is not for everyone. But worth the efforts if you find the right place to move. You can live a more pleasant and comfortable lifestyle at a fraction of the price than retiring in the US.

International Living Article: The World’s Best Places to Retire in 2020

Putting It All Together

If you are getting closer to retirement you might already have an idea how and where you want to spend your days. But deciding on where you want to live for the next 20 or more years requires an open discussion with your partner.

There are many important considerations and questions to ask yourselves. Buying a nice condo by the water or on a golf course may fit many baby boomer’s retirement lifestyles. Others, like me, would prefer to sell the house, cash out, and spend money on traveling the world.

What about you? What are your plans for retirement? Where do you want to live when you retire?

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