What do you think of over 55 communities for home values?

[cronewitch]

I am well over 55 but still care if my home increases in value. Some of the over 55 communities seem nice but I don't want to buy then find I can't sell because nobody likes being restricted. I just saw one with a double wide home online. I like double wide homes, they are one level, look like real homes and are pretty new with nice finishes and the lots are small so not much mowing. Some might even mow for you and have swimming pools and club houses so be pretty easy living.
www.redfin.com/WA/Kent/11436-SE-208th-St-98031/unit-86/home/22056449 is an example, cheap home for here but you need to pay dues 711 for space rent so more like renting than owning.
A place called the lakes seems to be stick built houses with some man made lakes for old people might be a better deal than renting space so you aren't ever an owner.

[happyhoix]

I think their value might depend on the percentage of people in the community that are over 55. Places known for being retirement centers probably have a lot of communities with homes that keep their value.

The are more limited, however, due to the restrictions. I heard of one grandmother who suddenly had to be the full time guardian for her 10 year old grandson, and the community told her she had to either sell her home and move, or rent it out to someone over 55 with no kids. That may scare off some people.

If you're interested in downsizing, you could look at condo or townhouse communities with no restrictions on age. Lots of people like the idea of having limited yard work to do, and a community pool. They will have condo fees, however, for upkeep of the grounds, the pool, etc.

[jitterbug]

I've lived in my home for 20 years and due to my community losing some prominent businesses and not bringing more in, my single family house is not worth much more than I bought it for in 1995! So that can happen with any home you own.  Even if the 55+ homes don't INCREASE in value - you can at least look at it that you lived there for free or cheap while you were there and got to enjoy all the amenities an over 55 community would bring. As I would think the amenities are most of the attraction anyway?

[Tiny]

I'm not so sure that manufactured homes go up in value.... I think you need to really know your area and your real estate market.

I 'discovered' a mobile home community (for people over 55) near by -- it has a private drive in an unincorporated area - I didn't drive thru it because I suspect I would immediately be seen as someone who 'doesn't belong there' - with the single entrance and all - you can't really see the houses from the main road - you have drive into it.     Using google maps - it looks like a pretty, nice, tidy community.   It's been there since the 1980's.  It's privately owned and it seems like new houses are added (not sure if they tear down the really old ones).

There's also a couple of "trailer parks" in that area - one seems really nice/well kept, there's a club house and pool and park - it's like a gated community you can see into it as you drive along the main road.   There's another one that seems a bit more 'run down' if you will - it's got regular streets and several ways to get into/out of it - it's got a "quicky mart and a sorry looking laundramat  at the main entrance. 

I looked at prices of the houses in the exclusive over 55 community - and it seemed that the older houses went for much less than the newer ones - even if they were the same size AND had updated kitchens/baths.    

I couldn't find info on the other two places. 

I also recently read a newspaper article about first time home buyers - buying into manufactured home communities - the article mentioned several times that manufactured homes (no matter how nice) don't seem to appreciate in value.   The article's author even questioned the first time buyers about this 'issue'.... the newbie home owners weren't too worried - they needed someplace cheap to live that was close to their potentially high paying job jobs.   They felt even if they couldn't sell the house for as much as they paid - they would make up for it in 'savings' while living there because it was such low cost housing and they were starting out on potentially high paid careers.   

I can see where manufactured housing might be a good choice but I think it requires a lot  of thought and consideration when making the decision.  (kinda like how a reverse mortgage may or may not be a good idea )

 

[sesfw]

We will stay in our single family home for as long as we can. Our area doesn't have HOA fees and sidewalk superintendents like a lot of horror stories I've heard.

IF/WHEN we can't stay in our home, we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

My older brother (77) and wife live in a restricted community of SFH and they love it.  Don't know what their HOA fee is and it's in So Calif.  I'm afraid to ask.  LOL

[Blonde Granny]

We built our house in an over 55 community in 2013. I plan on staying here as long as I can. 1700 sf, HOA dues are $945/yr. That covers lawn and shrub care, sprinkler system, including maintenance on it and the water for irrigation.  The clubhouse is 2700 sf, the HOA owns it and pays all costs associated with it.  We have no pool, tennis courts.  We do have a horse shoe area.  The clubhouse is used for pot luck dinners and breakfasts, special events, card games etc.

Right now the builder can't get the houses built fast enough. There are 20 lots left to build on for a total of 73 when build out is complete. I have 1700 sf, all brick and built using the zero lot line plan. 2 bd, 2 bath, 2 car.  House is not handicap accessible, it is considered handicap friendly.  All on one level, master bath showers are roll in for wheel chairs, all door ways are wide enough for a wheelchair.  No door knobs, but lever handles instead.

We paid $230K for ours, it would likely have a value now of $260K, but that's OK, it's paid for, taxes are low, HVAC costs are quite reasonable,  Cleaning service is $142/mo.

I'm happy and content, which for me is the reason I'm glad to be here.

[Gardening Grandma]

If DH passes before me, I'd consider an over 55 community. I agree with happyhoix that values depend on demand, so if it's in an area with a lot of retirees, like Sequim, values would probably hold up.

But I would not buy a manufactured (or mobile) home.  They may look nice, but I don't think they hold their value.

[resolution]

I think it depends a lot on the community and the amenities that they offer. My home state is very popular for retirees so they hold their value pretty well, but they are still slightly less expensive than a non retirement home since there are fewer buyers.

My parents live in an over 55 community made of single family homes. It is gated, has a golf course, fitness center, sports bar, swimming pools, theater, computer lab, woodshop, etc. They have been there 10 years and their house has gone up about 25% in 10 years. In their community about 50% of the residents are winter visitors with their main home in another state.

Next to them is a very nice trailer park over 55 community. It is also gated with a golf course, swimming pools, dance floor, community center and other amenities. My parents go there to square dance. A typical home there is a singlewide (including the lot) with maybe a screened in porch, and they have also gone up in value about 25%, which is most likely due to the value of the lot. The main difference with the trailer community is about 80% of the residents are winter visitors with their main home in another state.

[tskeeter]

Apr 1, 2016 14:13:27 GMT -5 @patstab said:

You need to be careful, many raise and raise those lot rents and it gets ridiculous.

I was in an rv/over 55 community in Florida, you can buy one of the nice little

houses for $10000. But the lot rents are so high people won't buy them. I would

rather own the house and lot, then the fee is usually less.

We have a community being built in our town now, there are 8 and they are adding

a lot more. They pay a flat $1500 a month, my understanding is that pay everything,

including yard maintenance and snow removal and I think even house cleaning. I'm

not sure about electric. You can walk across the street and eat in their dining room

for $5 a meal, the food is excellent. These are new brick duplexes with a 1 car garage.

My husband can't figure why anyone would do that. I sure can when I get to old and

if I'm not ready for assisted living yet, those would be great.

I will likely do something like that if I can.

One thing to remember is that the services available the day you buy in may not be available a few years later.  Especially something such as meals in the dining room.  Gran was in a facility that offered three meals a day, seven days a week.  A few years later, so many residents didn't want the limitations of the dining room that the facility began to reduce the number of meals they offered.  First, no Sunday evening dinner.  Then only two meals a day.  Wonder of they offer any meals at all by now.

[Bonny]

Apr 1, 2016 13:01:21 GMT -5 cronewitch said:

I am well over 55 but still care if my home increases in value. Some of the over 55 communities seem nice but I don't want to buy then find I can't sell because nobody likes being restricted. I just saw one with a double wide home online. I like double wide homes, they are one level, look like real homes and are pretty new with nice finishes and the lots are small so not much mowing. Some might even mow for you and have swimming pools and club houses so be pretty easy living.
www.redfin.com/WA/Kent/11436-SE-208th-St-98031/unit-86/home/22056449 is an example, cheap home for here but you need to pay dues 711 for space rent so more like renting than owning.
A place called the lakes seems to be stick built houses with some man made lakes for old people might be a better deal than renting space so you aren't ever an owner.

I wouldn't want to live in a restricted community personally but I understand how some people might like it.

My experience is looking at the history of the little rental home I sold after my mother died. I had to sell it at the bottom of the market in 2009 for $229k. My mom bought it in 2003 for $220k and probably put another $25k into it. It's located in a North County suburb of San Diego. It's now worth somewhere between $250k-$275k and if you look at it vs the zip code average it's mirroring the change in value although the house value is half of the average price for that zip code.

About a year ago I went house hunting with a friend looking at mobile homes in the same general area. I have to say that I went in a little biased and was pleasantly surprised at some of the set ups out there. My favorite was a little fixer upper across Hwy 1 with a gorgeous ocean view from the roof top deck. Set up was that you owned your lot and paid modest HOA dues. $495k and you'd probably at least $50k -$75k fixing it up/bringing to code. But a stick built house would be $1M+

[movingforward]

Apr 1, 2016 14:13:27 GMT -5 @patstab said:

You need to be careful, many raise and raise those lot rents and it gets ridiculous.

I was in an rv/over 55 community in Florida, you can buy one of the nice little

houses for $10000. But the lot rents are so high people won't buy them. I would

rather own the house and lot, then the fee is usually less.

We have a community being built in our town now, there are 8 and they are adding

a lot more. They pay a flat $1500 a month, my understanding is that pay everything,

including yard maintenance and snow removal and I think even house cleaning. I'm

not sure about electric. You can walk across the street and eat in their dining room

for $5 a meal, the food is excellent. These are new brick duplexes with a 1 car garage.

My husband can't figure why anyone would do that. I sure can when I get to old and

if I'm not ready for assisted living yet, those would be great.

I will likely do something like that if I can.

Dang, I would gladly move there now!  I would love to pay $1500 a month and have everything taken care of.  Walking across the street to eat - hell yeah!

I am half kidding, but only half

[kittensaver]

Note: not every Over-55 community is a double-wide park.

My 92 year old mother lives in a place that sounds very much like what Blonde Granny is describing. It is an entire "active seniors" planned community of single story, SFH's and paired homes (duplexes). It is a well-kept community with every imaginable amenity under the sun - and a few more you haven't thought of. We laughingly call it "Camp Grandma," but there's real truth behind the laughter. I swear if you can't find something there to interest you, you don't deserve to live there .

Those homes turn over VERY quickly. She bought the place for about $285k or so about 18 years ago. It would sell today for probably in the high $300's. [but we will not see any of that because there's a reverse mortgage on it]

[Value Buy]

You really have to be careful with all these "new exclusive senior citizen/ over 55" communities. They are not all built the same way financially.
I just finished reading,  "Leisureville" by Andrew Blechman.
You have to take it with several grains of salt because he hates adult communities and admits it.
Seniors are moving out of their old neighborhoods to live a happy retirement life leaving their families behind. He does not even give them credit from moving out of winter climate where they live in the houses for three months and do nothing.....
He focuses mostly on Sun City Arizona and the Villages, in Florida.
What caught my attention is the development rules, and how some developers use CDD'S to build the roads and sewer, water, clubhouses, golf courses, and when the community gets built out, they are sold back to the community at a high price sticking the homeowners with the cost of purchase.
I would suggest reading it if contemplating the move, but keep in mind, he is talking a few select communities that also have thousands of homes, and not all developments are the same.

[kittensaver]

Apr 7, 2016 8:28:16 GMT -5 Value Buy said:

You really have to be careful with all these "new exclusive senior citizen/ over 55" communities. They are not all built the same way financially.
I just finished reading,  "Leisureville" by Andrew Blechman.
You have to take it with several grains of salt because he hates adult communities and admits it.
Seniors are moving out of their old neighborhoods to live a happy retirement life leaving their families behind. He does not even give them credit from moving out of winter climate where they live in the houses for three months and do nothing.....
He focuses mostly on Sun City Arizona and the Villages, in Florida.
What caught my attention is the development rules, and how some developers use CDD'S to build the roads and sewer, water, clubhouses, golf courses, and when the community gets built out, they are sold back to the community at a high price sticking the homeowners with the cost of purchase.
I would suggest reading it if contemplating the move, but keep in mind, he is talking a few select communities that also have thousands of homes, and not all developments are the same.

I think all of this is a big, fat "it depends." Of course what suits one person perfectly is someone's else's nightmare. But I agree that the details of ANY major financial purchase should be scrutinized thoroughly.

As long as I have DH and we are happy and settled in our community, I'll stay put and we will age-in-place. We have a life and friends and connections here (and he has clients). If I were to lose DH in my older years - especially when our current friends and cohorts move away and pass on - I might seriously consider a senior community. It can be comforting to live in your own home and yet have that extra layer of security and amenities handled for you when you get too old or too tired to live alone in the old 'hood. My mother went on and built a whole new life for herself in her senior community. I admire her for it - she just didn't give up and get old and die.

[Deleted]

Apr 1, 2016 14:13:27 GMT -5 @patstab said:

One thing to remember is that the services available the day you buy in may not be available a few years later.  Especially something such as meals in the dining room.  Gran was in a facility that offered three meals a day, seven days a week.  A few years later, so many residents didn't want the limitations of the dining room that the facility began to reduce the number of meals they offered.  First, no Sunday evening dinner.  Then only two meals a day.  Wonder of they offer any meals at all by now.

That would be my concern. Prices go up. If you have a community of people who resist increases, services will deteriorate. I'm planning to move into a Continuing Care community when I can no longer live alone but I'll want a long-established one with a good financial track record.

[kittensaver]

Just another note: senior communities that offer care or progressive levels of care are a very different animal than those that are merely for those 55+.

Many "active senior" communities offer tons of recreational amenities but NO medical or care services; they are merely age-segregated communities (allowed by law) for older citizens. If you need or want care in one of these types of communities you need to bring it in (and pay for it) yourself, the same as if you were living somewhere in a regular (non-senior) community or neighborhood.

As Value Buy pointed out, it's important to know for exactly what you are signing up.

In keeping with the question posed the OP, there are very few home ownership opportunities in care communities; in most of them you pay a hefty entrance fee, and then a monthly amount (which increases over time). Those few exceptions aside (and yes they are out there!), there is no way your property would appreciate because you don't own the unit. In contrast, many "active senior" communities offer small SFH's, condos, duplexes and/or trailers for sale . . . and depending on where you live, those CAN appreciate in value over time.

[haapai]

It seems to me that one of the huge downsides of buying in an over-55 community is that it's frequently a long ways away from anywhere that you have lived before.  If you ignore the "rent for a year before buying" advice, you may be in for a few surprises.  This is particularly true if most of the people that you talk to prior to buying are essentially salespeople. 

Traffic congestion can be a big stinking deal in communities with limited access and I'm not just speaking about congestion at the access points.   Most folks have the good sense to check that out.  What I am speaking of is the five to twenty miles of congestion and slow drivers that you may find yourself fighting every time that you leave the house for provisions, medical services, or entertainment.  There just aren't all that many different routes to follow after leaving a restricted access community and that tends to create secondary or extended rush hours just after and just before the still-working hit the road en masse and weekend rush hours.  If you've never encountered these before, it won't occur to you inquire about them and salespeople won't mention them.   The friends that are encouraging you to move nearby might not either. 

It takes a certain amount of persistence and curiosity to figure out what the local utility rates and connectivity charges are and a certain amount of experience to realize that utility and garbage rates can vary quite a bit over relatively small distances.   You may understand that water, electricity, and garbage rates are generally higher or lower than what you are used to but you may not pay much attention to the details of how much you'll be using, how high the connectivity and disconnection charges are, or who exactly provides electricity or picks up the garbage in the place that you'll be moving to, how much they charge, and how tight a pickup window they have.  If you come from an place where people drain their pipes and turn off electricity in unoccupied homes to save money and make them unattractive targets for squatters, you're not prepared for a place where you must water your lawn year-round, subscribe to an alarm service, and have exactly one garbage pickup option. 

ETA:  There's also the condo curse.  When you sell, you'll have to explain why you are asking so much more for your place than something nearby with a very similar floorplan, square footage, location, and year of construction.  It's not nice to compete with distress sales, especially when the similar unit has already been sold but continues to have an adverse effect on prices.   

[Bonny]

Apr 7, 2016 15:28:43 GMT -5 @athena53 said:

Apr 1, 2016 14:13:27 GMT -5 @patstab said:

One thing to remember is that the services available the day you buy in may not be available a few years later.  Especially something such as meals in the dining room.  Gran was in a facility that offered three meals a day, seven days a week.  A few years later, so many residents didn't want the limitations of the dining room that the facility began to reduce the number of meals they offered.  First, no Sunday evening dinner.  Then only two meals a day.  Wonder of they offer any meals at all by now.

That would be my concern. Prices go up. If you have a community of people who resist increases, services will deteriorate. I'm planning to move into a Continuing Care community when I can no longer live alone but I'll want a long-established one with a good financial track record.

And the problem is the communities can be bought and sold too and you can't control who buys and runs the community. My MIL was investigating one that looked really good (in one of her few periods of reasonableness) but it got purchased by another group.

This was one of those where you make a significant "down payment" of something like $200k + monthly fees. Supposedly you can make the transfer to more and more care seamlessly.

But a really disturbing scenario was reading a review from someone whose father was becoming more and more difficult and the CCC kicked him out...minus his $200k thereby he had no way to pay for another facility. It's not hard to see how this scenario could be abused once care became too expensive.

And of course in my MIL's case she's already difficult and demanding so I don't think that relationship would make it six months!

[Deleted]

Apr 7, 2016 16:20:25 GMT -5 kittensaver said:

Just another note: senior communities that offer care or progressive levels of care are a very different animal than those that are merely for those 55+.

<snip>

As Value Buy pointed out, it's important to know for exactly what you are signing up.

In keeping with the question posed the OP, there are very few home ownership opportunities in care communities; in most of them you pay a hefty entrance fee, and then a monthly amount (which increases over time).

Yeah, I kind of skipped over onto another category with similar concerns but a few more complications.

I remember having dinner with friends in their home in an active over-55 community. As kittensaver noted, they paid an entrance fee but when they died or moved out (e.g. into LTC) the company owned the unit. The entrance fee, of course, was based on their ages.  They were free to make improvements but, of course, any enhancement in value went to the company.   Some places promise to refund the entry fees when you leave (meaning the entry fees are steeper up front) but one place in our area ran into problems and was unable to refund the entry fees when people needed them.

My grandfather and his second wife lived in a Continuing Care community in FL and it worked well for them, although at the end he really wanted to stay in his unit instead of going to the "Health Center" (which was, of course, the nursing home).  It was costing him $10K/month for the 24/7 in-home care he needed and he finally relented because he ran out of money for the in-home care, which was not covered.