My Biggest Retirement Mistake: Delaying a Move to Retirement Housing

Around this time, Bunnell heard from a friend in Indiana who was moving into a continuing-care retirement community. Also known as CCRCs or life-plan communities, these facilities aim to accommodate older adults’ changing needs by offering multiple housing options — from independent living to assisted living to nursing homes — and a range of support services all in one place, typically in exchange for a lump-sum entry charge and ongoing monthly fees or rents.

Bunnell’s friend told her she had “found a place she could not have imagined moving into because of the consistent support and the level of care available,” Bunnell says. “I suddenly found out there were three communities within 15 minutes of me.” The couple settled on Christian Care Communities, a nonprofit housing provider with locations across Kentucky. In the fall of 2022, they paid a $173,650 entry fee and moved into a garden home in the organization’s Middletown, Kentucky, community, just outside Louisville.

All repairs are covered by what Bunnell calls “very reasonable” maintenance fees (about $730 a month). There’s an emergency room nearby, and if they need to move to assisted living — temporarily for extra care, or permanently when they’re ready — they have a spot and don’t have to move away.

More than that, they have a community again. Their neighbors pick up their medications for them when they can’t. They participate in social events such as musical performances and holiday tree decorating in the complex’s assisted-living building. And after a year of intense chemotherapy, Paul is cancer-free. “In late September, he finally got a clean CT scan, which shocked everyone,” Deb says.

Deb relaxes in her neighborhood, part of a Christian Care Communities campus that also includes assisted living and nursing home units. "This is where we’ll live for the rest of our lives," she says.

LYDIA SCHWEICKART

At home, she makes mugs and bowls on her enclosed porch. “I put my pottery stuff out there — the glazes and the roller and a table to cut the pottery,” she says. (Tremors prevent her from using a wheel.)

Bunnell does miss the mix of ages at the condo community where she used to live. “Once in a while, one of my neighbors’ grandchildren [will visit],” she says. Her own grandchild lives nearby and visits, too. “It’s so much fun to have the kids in the neighborhood laughing or riding their bikes with their parents and grandparents.”

Overall, she’s happy she’ll never have to look for a new home again.

“It’s a big relief to know everything is taken care of,” she says. “This is where we’ll live for the rest of our lives.”

What the pro says

While the Bunnells came to regret renting for so long, doing so at first made sense in their situation, says Sherry Finkel Murphy, a certified financial planner in Saratoga Springs, New York, and founder of Madrina Molly, a financial education company focused on women over 50. 

Finkel Murphy says renting a smaller place can be an emotionally important step in downsizing. It buys you time to figure out the next step after the “heavy lifting” of getting rid of your old place, she says, and alleviates the pressure of trying to quickly decide if a particular house or neighborhood is right for you in the long run.

If the next step is a CCRC, as it was for the Bunnells, understand the financial complications. With a traditional home purchase, you (or your heirs) can profit from selling if you no longer want or need the property. With a CCRC, there is no equity; the money you put down is an entrance fee to buy into the community and gain access to its different services and housing levels. In some communities, residents can get a partial refund if they change their mind and decide to move out. The refundable amount typically decreases the longer you stay, and the fee becomes nonrefundable at some point. “It’s all in the fine print,” says Finkel Murphy.

“I did have a client who decided, after buying into a continuous-care facility, that she wanted to be closer to family, and went through the effort of undoing it so that she could be in a rental, independent-living arrangement,” Finkel Murphy adds. The client lost money, “but at least she was a stone’s throw from her daughter and family.”

Deb and Paul’s $173,650 fee was relatively low (CCRC entrance fees average around $400,000 and can reach into the low seven figures, according to U.S. News & World Report), and it’s refundable at a 76 percent rate if they move out of the community before entering assisted living. If they go into assisted living, the money is put in escrow, and assisted-living fees are deducted monthly (by $3,900 if one of them makes the move; $5,500 if both do).

Before deciding whether to live in a CCRC, read the contract carefully, and try a rental unit first if the community offers them, Finkel Murphy advises. Throwing away a few months of rent to see if you like the place may save you throwing away a lot more if you buy in prematurely and then change your mind.