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In every person’s life there comes a time when ones physical and mental state has decline to a point that it is no longer convenient or possible to live and take care of the myriad chores (e.g. home maintenance and cleaning, gardens and lawn upkeep, snow removal, auto maintenance, financial and health management, et al) of living in the US. If you are super rich, you can hire a manager to take care of everything and go on living in your home. But for middle or upper middle class families, this becomes a problem. While one can out-source some of the tasks, the sheer task of keep track of all these jobs can still be daunting. The traditional solution in both the US and China is to move close to one of your children who can share some of the burdens. However, is this added burden for your child OK? And if you have more than one child living in different cities which one should bear the burden and is this fair? One solution that has developed in recent decades is the retirement community solution. You downsize and move from your larger home into an apartment or condo where retirees similar to you live together in a large apartment complex with all kinds of health, maintenance, restaurants and entertainment facilities all under one roof. The company manage such facilities also offer different life style possibilities ranging from INDEPENDENT LIVING, ASSISTED LIVING, AND NURSING HOME CARE depending on your physical and mental condition. You and your partner can also be in different life stages. You still can visit each other every day all under one roof without the need to go outdoors or driving. Your children will be relieved of all burden for your health care.
We have elected to buy into such a facility in our hometown and move this coming Spring.
Nevertheless, there is still the major problem of clear and sort out things we have accumulated over 56 years of living in one home which has a 3000 sq.ft. area into a condo of 1200 sq.ft. For the past months we begin to tackle this task and discovered things we forgot we had, gifts received that we put away and never opened, etc. etc. What do you do with everything in your home. It turns out an industry has sprung up to help you with this problem. Basically, they undertake the task of selling or auctioning off all the things you designate and take a significant percentage of the proceeds (35% to 40%). Neither you nor your children need to be involved except to decide what to sell, what to keep and what to give away. One friendly older couple we know realized some US$7000.00 net this way when they moved a few years back.
Of course, lastly you still have the problem of selling your current home. This is a problem for your real estate agent to handle for which they are handsomely compensated particularly if you have a desirable home.
So, this is what an average family have to do in the final phase. They are not without stress and have induced anxiety dreams for me for the first time in decades.
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