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.
more...
Published on March 23, 2009
Comments 1
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).
more...
Published on March 17, 2009
Comments 3
Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
Oh baby boomers, what a mess we're in now. Not only have our investment portfolios been hammered, but our real estate investments are hurting too. A recent study from the Council for Economic Research points out that both add up to grim news for baby boomers - particularly for those who planned on moving to start their retirement.
“The collapse of the housing bubble, which led to the current recession, has already destroyed almost $6 trillion dollars in housing wealth for homeowners,” said report co-author Dean Baker. “This reality is compounded by the recent collapse of the stock market. The result is that many baby boomers will only have Social Security and Medicare to rely on in their retirement."
more...
Published on March 15, 2009
Comments 4
Category: Baby Boomer Retirement Issues
Everybody talks about, and many people even do something about, the two obvious aspects of retirement planning. But almost nobody is attending to the third leg of retirement planning: mental preparation.
more...
Published on March 9, 2009
Comments 0
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
Dateline: Fort Myers and Miami, Florida. Your Topretirements editor is spending a few days in South Florida. Realizing that the region is one of the 3 hardest hit real estate markets in the country (along with Phoenix and Las Vegas), we wondered: what would this meltdown look like in person? Since retirement in the warm climes of South Florida is the dream of many a baby boomer, here is our report on what we can see by looking out the window, jogging through the streets, talking with folks, and reading the newspapers.
more...
Published on March 1, 2009
Comments 0
Category: Retirement Real Estate
If you could buy your dream home and save $200,000 or more, would you be tempted? For many retirees, the news reports of homes selling for half what they were 3 years ago are interesting. In fact, in many areas of the country the prospect of a bargain-priced distress sale has become so attractive that sales of new homes have just about stopped. In case you are thinking about plunging in yourself, we have prepared some background on the issues involved in this topic for our Topretirements.com visitors.
more...
Published on February 22, 2009
Comments 1
Category: Home and Garden
Most baby boomers are currently in a "hold" mode. For them, waiting out the economic storm means postponing their retirement or second home purchase. To help you while away the time, we've come up with an armchair/dinner table exercise - what are the "must-have" features you (and your S.O.) must have in your new retirement home?
more...
Published on February 15, 2009
Comments 16
Category: Retirement Real Estate
It's not a contest anyone wants to win - whose housing crisis was the worst in 2008. The contenders: Phoenix, Las Vegas, South Florida - all with year over year price declines of 30% or more.
more...
Published on February 9, 2009
Comments 2
Category: Active adult communities
If you haven't noticed, not every active adult community is created equal. Depending on the skill and commitment of the developer, the community can be interesting and an easy joy to live in - or boring and inconvenient. Some of the most interesting examples of the best community designs are evident in the 2008 Best in American Living Awards (BALA), which were just announced. The awards are sponsored by a panel of judges put together by Professional Builder, a division of the National Association of Home Builders. There are a number of categories (and all of the winners are worth looking at), but this article concerns the 2008 winners for the Communities division. Common
more...
Published on February 3, 2009
Comments 3
Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
Ask any 4 people when they intend to start taking social security benefits and you might get 4 different answers. Ditto with how long should you keep working and how that work will impact your social security benefits (short answer: working longer is usually a good thing for your benefits).
more...
Published on February 1, 2009
Comments 0
