If you believe all the articles aimed at retirees, everyone over a certain age is packing up and moving! From tips on downsizing to all those “10 Best Places to Retire” lists, today’s retiring boomers seem determined to pick up stakes and try enjoying their golden years someplace else. At least, that’s what the articles might suggest. 

We admit, the idea of moving somewhere new in retirement can sound tempting, part of the “retirement do-over” mentality. Always wanted to live by the shore, or up in the mountains? Ever longed for a quiet life in a college town or a condo in the big city? Now’s your chance, the retirement experts say. However, as this recent NextAvenue article reminds us, before posting that “For Sale” sign, there are several things about relocating that you need to keep in mind. 

The key question: are you letting the lure of a new living situation blind you to the reality of what you’ll be giving up when you move away from the familiar neighborhood? In her article, Florida-based journalist Pat Raia recounts the process she and her husband went through, first in deciding to move, then in changing their minds and electing to stay put. See what you think. 

Retirees “Bombarded” by Advice to Move Somewhere Else 

“Everywhere I looked last fall, I was bombarded with messages about cleaning up, cleaning out and moving on to pull equity from my house and invest it into living the rest of my life happily ever after somewhere else,” Raia begins her NextAvenue article.  

So, within thirty days, she says, she and her husband took those messages to heart. “We reasoned that by selling our current home, which we purchased in 2012 for $185,000, we could bank or invest enough of the more than $500,000 in equity to supplement our otherwise fixed income and live pretty comfortably for the rest of our lives,” she writes.  

The Math of Moving: Spend a Little, Save a Lot 

Even further than that, Raia and her husband looked forward to leaving behind the “amenities” in their lives that had evolved into financial liabilities over time as they got older, namely the swimming pool, formal dining room, and one acre of property. “Gone would be the weekly expense of paying someone to maintain the swimming pool that we rarely used, as well as the monthly payment to the landscaper who mowed the acre of land in the middle of which our residence sat,” she writes.  

They started to do their calculations, taking into account the cost of moving to another town in the same state. According to MoveAdvisor, the average cost of a move within the same vicinity or state (considered a “local move”) is around $1,712. Moving APT lands that number somewhere between $1,250 and $3,400, based on how much stuff you’re planning to take with you. Packing items yourselves (instead of hiring movers to do it) is also a way to cut costs.  

To wrap up their calculations, Raia and her husband considered the listing agent and buyer’s agent commissions, between 5 and 6 percent of the home’s selling price. “On paper it all made good financial sense,” Raia writes. “And at the time, that was all that mattered.” 

Downsizing Baby Boomers Are Most Likely to Relocate 

So they pushed forward with the plan. They put their house on the market, started packing, and searched for a new home that would be a better economical fit. In doing so, they became two of the more than 3 million adults aged 65 and older who move every year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. 

The National Association of Realtors reports that baby boomers — people in their 60s and 70s — are most likely to relocate when it came time for them to downsize. The NAR report says, “Younger boomers and older boomers typically purchased a home that was 100 square feet smaller than the home they sold.” On the other hand, The Silent Generation—those born between 1928 and 1945—tended to purchase a home 300 square feet smaller than the one they sold. 

Search Reveals That There’s No Place Like Home 

This data confirmed for Raia that she and her husband were on the right track in looking to downsize. But their search hit a snag. 

“Still,” she writes, “within 30 days of starting our search we discovered that the list of our requirements for the ‘new’ house included all the things we already had in the ‘old’ house, with the exceptions of the swimming pool, one-acre lot and formal dining room that we used infrequently because nobody seems to do formal dining at anybody’s house anymore.” 

The full reality of what she calls “the relocation reckoning and its real cost” manifested one day when Raia’s sister-in-law and her best friend, both of whom live within miles from the house she was about to sell, showed up on her doorstep to invite her to lunch.  

Raia later told her husband, “Well, that’s not going to happen if we move even 20 miles away.” 

Actual Cost of Relocation is Social, Not Financial 

Nancy Schier Anzelmo, a gerontologist who serves as the principal consultant for Alzheimer’s Care Associates, notes that the real cost of relocating isn’t about the dollars and cents. Instead, it’s about the lost social connections for those who relocate.  

“You are leaving your church, your doctors, your friends and your social support groups when you relocate,” Schier Anzelmo says. “It doesn’t matter if you are moving across the state or across town, you are leaving those connections — it’s one thing to go across town to see your friends as opposed to going across the street to have coffee with your neighbor.” 

Moving to be Closer to Family Can Still Leave You Lonely 

Raia adds, “Meanwhile, the National Association of Realtors says, 19 percent of boomers in their 60s, 29 percent of boomers in their 70s and 28 percent of Silent Generation members — people aged 80 and over — purchased a home to be closer to their family and friends.” 

That said, Schier Anzelmo warns that those who relocate to get closer geographically to their children and grandchildren may not be doing themselves or their kids any favors.  

“Even if you move closer to your children, you are likely to experience loneliness,” she says. “If you don’t have any friends and rely on your kids for your social connections it’s difficult for you and for them, so think about what burden you are putting on your children at a time when they are raising children and building their own careers.” 

Think About Staying Put – and Plan to Make It Work 

With all of this in mind, what is the real solution? According to Schier Anzelmo: think long and hard about staying put, and plan to make it work.  

You can start by assessing which connections are crucial to your quality of life. “Make a circle and decide who would be in your inner circle,” she advises. “You know, who would be there for you — who you could call if your car broke down in the middle of the night, for instance.” 

Next, think about the changes you could make to your current home to make it more financially and physically advantageous. “For example, if you have a two-story home, put in an elevator before you need it,” Schier Anzelmo says. 

She also encourages looking at which services you already pay for and reducing or eliminating them to save money. For example, cutting paying a landscaping service down from once a month to once every other month.  

“It might cost more in the long run to move than it would be to make changes to stay in your home,” Schier Anzelmo says. “The big thing is that you need to be prepared to get older.” 

Saving Some Money, Savoring the Relationships 

“That’s exactly what my husband and I are doing,” Raia writes in her article’s conclusion. “We’re paying for less landscaping and doing more gardening. We’re enjoying more poolside breakfasts and stressing less over how little we go swimming. And we’d rather dust the dining room furniture than prepare a dinner for 20 guests. 

“Most importantly, we’re keeping the relationships we were always unwilling to give up. We just didn’t know it when all those other messages were ringing in our ears.” 

Rajiv Nagaich – Your Retirement Planning Coach and Guide 

The long-awaited book by Rajiv Nagaich, called Your Retirement: Dream or Disaster, has been released and is now available to the public. Retirement: Dream or Disaster joins Rajiv’s ground-breaking DVD series and workbook, Master Your Future, as a powerful planning tool in your retirement toolbox. As a friend of AgingOptions, we know you’ll want to get your copy and spread the word.  

You’ve heard Rajiv say it repeatedly: 70 percent of retirement plans will fail. If you know someone whose retirement turned into a nightmare when they were forced into a nursing home, went broke paying for care, or became a burden to their families – and you want to make sure it doesn’t happen to you – then this book is must-read. 

Through stories, examples, and personal insights, Rajiv takes us along on his journey of expanding awareness about a problem that few are willing to talk about, yet it’s one that results in millions of Americans sleepwalking their way into their worst nightmares about aging. Rajiv lays bare the shortcomings of traditional retirement planning advice, exposes the biases many professionals have about what is best for older adults, and much more. 

Rajiv then offers a solution: LifePlanning, his groundbreaking approach to retirement planning. Rajiv explains the essential planning steps and, most importantly, how to develop the framework for these elements to work in concert toward your most deeply held retirement goals.  

Your retirement can be the exciting and fulfilling life you’ve always wanted it to be. Start by reading and sharing Rajiv’s important message. And remember, Age On, everyone! 

(originally reported at www.nextavenue.org)