Last September, in a piece titled Where We Expect To Retire, I informed folks that we were planning to move to Kendal Crosslands Communities, the Crosslands campus, in the early summer. This was built around a number of issues, including my wife wanting to retire by then. Since then a number of things have happened, and relevant to this issue was we did things a bit out of order. Most folks who are moving to a CCRC or LifeCare community do not put their houses on the market until they have commitment and date for when they will move into the community — it usually possible to get a bridge loan and little or no interest to cover most of the cost of the (substantial) entrance fee. But we knew when we wanted to move, there was a great deal of demand for houses in Arlington VA(because of Amazon II and Raytheon having come in) with little inventory and we were advised we might get a good deal putting the house on the market early. We spoke and met with several realtors, and picked a husband and wife in early January. Our house was built in 1937 (it has been upgraded several times), has very old plumbing that probably needs replacing, lacks a master bedroom suite, but has soje desirable features. It is also on a large enough piece of land that a tear down and a replacement with a very expensive new house was possible. The realtor couple never listed the house — they talked with builders, some of whom walked the property to see about the possibilities for a tear down, and one who walked through the house to consider upgrading it. That builder decided to buy it, and after some back and forth, less than two weeks after we signed with the realtors, we had a deal at an acceptable price, with the closing April 30, with the right to stay in the house for two months rent free (the equivalent of a purchase price thousands actually more). But that meant we would need a new home by June 30th.
That created a major problem for us, which I will describe below the fold.
Kendal Crosslands Community (KCC) is almost fully filled. KCC will, unlike most such communities, allow to move into a smaller unit (for lower entrance and monthly fees) until the size you want becomes available. We were prepared to do that, and were going through the processes t0 enable us to have that option, when the only residence that would have met our needs was taken by someone ahead of us on the priority list. There was no guarantee when ANY suitable residence, even one much smaller than our needs, would be available, and we might have to rent in the nearby community for several years, which would have meant we would NOT have the medical coverage one gets by being part of such a community.
We explored several other communities. One we had never officially registered for and they would not qualify us for the size residence we wanted. Two others, both run by Sunrise but owned by their communities, we were already on the lists and had suitable apartments available. The Colonnades, in Charlottesville on land owned by the University of Virginia foundation, was lovely with an apartment whose layout we loved. But it was 5 hours away from her family, which is mainly in Delaware the NJ suburbs of Philadelphia. So we once again last Saturday visited the Quadrangle, in Haverford PA.
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entrance to the community of the Quadrangle
On Sunday my wife decided she wanted to move there, so today we went back, signed the paperwork to enter and to take out an interest fee promissary note for one year for ¾ of the entrance fee. We now have our final home — 2 BR with 2 BA, 1,000 square feet, in an intellectually vibrant community. We know that from experience — the father of my beloved Leaves on the Current, who was a retired Swarthmore College Math professor as well as a serious post-retirement naturalist, spent the last five years of his life in that community and was very happy there.
more the main building
There are several retired faculty members from both Haverford College, where I did my undergrad and from the music department at Penn, where I did some doctoral studies 5 decades ago.There are two superb hospitals nearby. My wife notes that there is a center for research and greatment of multiple myeloma, the blood cancer she has. It is about 2 miles from the Haverford campus, and perhaps and equal distance from her high school alma mater, the Shipley School.
She is an hour or less from 3 of her four siblings (the other teaches African Art at Middlebury College in VT) as well as nieces and nephews. I hae a Quaker Meeting a 5 pimute drive away. There is nice Greek Orthodox Church about 4 miles away, and she is an hour away from the Orthodox Church near one of her sisters that she has attended off and on when visiting family over perhaps more than a dozen years. Oh, and my best man now attends the Greek Orthodox Church I just mentioned.
There is one other MAJOR factor that influenced our decision. PA does not out state tax on pensions, IRAs and equivalent. That include my wife’s federal thrift savings, which is the bulk of our assets. In VA we would pay 5.75% on both (neither state taxes Social Security).
We are happy with our decision, relieved that we know where and when we will move. I can on weekends once we have access begin to move clothes and books in.
So our plans have changed, but we are more than happy how things have worked out. Now we are starting tell people, and hence this post.
Peace.
