Aging In Place, what is it?
I want to talk real quickly about aging in place. And this goes along with the downsizing theme that I’ve been talking about for a lot of this first quarter of 2022.
Aging in place really doesn’t mean that you go to a rest home and you age in the same place until you pass away. It’s more of an expression. In real estate parlance, it means where you get to pick the place where you age out or move on in life. Lots of times people stay in their house until it gets too cumbersome for them to stay there. Then the kids move them to an assisted living facility and then a nursing home, and then you pass on. This is not really a terribly uplifting way to look at this topic. But aging in place is where you choose. And it’s not necessarily, “Well, I want to live in a fancy condominium on Commonwealth Avenue or Fifth Avenue.” It’s more of a question of finding a place that’s going to work for you as you get older and become, say, less mobile.
It is your choice.
So, one of the things I always say when you decide to pick a place, your aging in place residence, is that you need to first downsize into something that’s a little bit more simple. So there’s a lot of expenses that get paired from not having to maintain the lawn and the snow shoveling and the paint and the maintenance. All of those issues that you would like to sidestep by downsizing. However, you also get to pick where you’re going to live and where you can get the appropriate help. So you want to find a place that satisfies some of the physical limitations that come with age.
One Floor Living
For instance, a first-floor bedroom is something to consider. This allows you to live where everything’s on one floor. Think about this, is there a ramp to get into the house so that you don’t have to go up a couple, three, five steps to get into a home? Because lots of times I see these great first-floor living options, but you have to go up a flight of stairs or two or three steps to get in there. If you’re going to have one, you may as well have seven steps, because there’s still a little bit of effort to get up to where ever the stairs lead you. And then when you get in, you need barrier-free living. Yes, the first-floor master is great, because you don’t have to go upstairs to go to bed, or downstairs, but you need a bathroom where you don’t have to step into the tub. Perhaps you need a bathroom where you can roll a wheelchair into the shower because it doesn’t have the little curb there. They make those now, and it’s great for you as you become a senior, as they say. And we talked about the aforementioned ramps.
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It may not be today, but it will be in the future.
So aging in place really is one of the things to think about. You might not need that at all now, but at some point in time. But, many people will need the simplicity of one-floor living, so it’s worth figuring out. The last thing, and the most important thing about aging in place, is you get to pick where you want to be and your kids don’t do it for you. And that’s an important piece because you can stay in a zip code, you can stay in the community of your choice. Sometimes you may want to buy that condominium, but you’ll have to upgrade the bathrooms and the kitchens and make the kitchen wide enough to handle a wheelchair and the bathroom so that you’re not stepping over things, it’s all super level.
Those are the things that I want to talk about and about aging in place, and it’s part of the downsizing theme for the first quarter. I appreciate your reading my blog and taking a couple of minutes to read my rambling. If you like my work, please hit click, like, subscribe, follow, whatever medium we’re on. Anyway, thanks for reading!