Arizona and Florida have developments sold to retired people.
Have seen the developments and they are not near supermarkets or medical facilities. Are the people that buy there very short-sighted?
Am I missing something?

Not sure.

I remember some years ago that retirees were taking their life savings and buying into retirement communities. Which eventually went bankrupt, leaving people unable to live in a community that wasn't being run or maintained and having no resources to go elsewhere.

Gotta be careful out there and do your due diligence. . . .

There's a Del Webb community that opened in the far, far northwest burbs. To get to anything you have to drive quite a ways. I wondered why a senior would buy there, unless they they wanted to live their early retirement years in a resort-ish type setting, playing golf and going to the pool. As you get older, not such a good choice.

Cindy speaks sooth about retirement communities and due diligence. I've talked about Friendship Village where my FIL lived. It is the largest retirement community in the state and had a stellar reputation in all regards. Until they went bankrupt last year.

They always relied on a steady stream of people moving in. There was literally a waiting list and it was pretty much the case that someone had move out or to die in order for a new person to get in. When COVID hit, they couldn't conduct tours and few/no new people moved in and their cash flow took a hit.

Some of the plans allowed for a refund of some of the entrance fee if/when you left the community. The money wasn't held in escrow or trust, and apparently was spent on operating costs, so nothing was available for the refunds.

FV has gone through bankruptcy and the refunds will happen eventually, but the payback schedule stretches out over 16 years. The company that bought it has instituted a pay-as-you-go approach, with no lifetime guarantee.

I think we'll be seeing more and more of this happening.

https://www.chicagotribune.com...ts-and-families-too/

https://www.msn.com/en-us/mone...ay-debts/ar-BB1i1k6U

This article talks about how the FV bankruptcy was resolved:

https://www.dailyherald.com/20...ge-senior-community/

i'd love to find one that has a horse barn and trails. but it needs to be near medical and other resources.

I think we will stay right where we are, in the house we have lived in for over a quarter century now.

Bob's is one mile from Trader Joe's and one mile from a Kroger family supermarket. Sprouts is less than a half mile.
A major hospital is within three miles.
It is insanely hot in Tucson in the summer and getting worse. Otherwise I would consider moving here.

I can't imagine living in a retirement community. The things other seniors like to do are not things I normally do.

That said, aging in place is hard. It didn't work well for my parents or Mr. Sphinx's parents. Once the healthy parent died, the more infirm one went to a nursing home. For my parents, my mom died, my dad had dementia, so assisted living for him, then memory care. For Mr. Sphinx's parents, his dad died, and his mostly blind and mostly deaf mom went to assisted living.

I still feel bad that we couldn't/didn't take my dad in. This was pre-Covid, I was traveling, my siblings were travel and busy with careers, so a nice assisted living place seemed like the best option. I wish we had done something different, but I can't imagine what that would have been.

I do think those places run shuttle buses to grocery stores, other shopping, theaters, and such. At least, my mother's did.

At that age, even if the store's a block away, you might have trouble getting there.

That said, I would worry a lot about bankruptcy and its fallout. I see our upcoming move to a new town and house as Retirement, Stage One.

It's a walkable town with public transport. With Uber for more distant places, we could survive there without being able to drive. The house has stairs, but it has had a chair lift in it before. Reinstalling that (or an elevator) and adding a ramp to deal with the steep steps into the house would buy us a lot of years there--enough years, we hope, that we just can't see far enough into the future to see what's next.

I imagine that Retirement, Stage Two would kick in if one of us had a serious health issue that the other one couldn't deal with alone or with a reasonable amount of hired assistance. Or if the house became too much to keep up with the amount of assistance we were willing to hire.

We have friends who just moved into one of these all-inclusive retirement places. They're both healthy, active, and able to drive, but they're 80-ish. The most difficult thing for them was downsizing to a two-bedroom apartment, which would be the hardest thing for us. Presuming the place remains financially solvent, though, this has been great for them. She has been a swimmer all her life and she can walk to the indoor pool. He has access to the gym and people to play bridge with. They're very happy with it, so far.

You can get a vacuum type elevator that isn't nearly as expensive as an Otis assuming it's possible in your house.

My aunt came back from LA to NYS after thirty years to be taken care of by her sister-in-law and brother because she was dying of cancer. This was part of a property settlement deal made by her mother and brothers.

Anyway she couldn't stay in her mother's apartment 'because it was rented' (which was a violation of the agreement). My uncle had bought the house next door and had rental income from five total properties. He wasn't going to give any of them up no matter what NYS landlord tenant law allowed or didn't allow.

She first stayed in her childhood bedroom upstairs. She was the most optimistic person you could ever hope to meet but by this time she was dying and depressed.

They put her on the screen porch when she could no longer walk up and down the stairs.

My uncle and aunt simply wouldn't be inconvenienced by giving up their formal living room.

They wouldn't let her bring her cat from LA. She called me up crying. I had never heard her cry before that day or after it.

It was very sad.

Regarding the topic, being in Florida, they have a creepy vibe to me.

I imagine it would be like living in a circle of hell.

Ask me what I really think. Lol.