Yesterday, while idling away some time by ogling real estate ads, I stumbled across an amazing factoid: An apartment in the very elegant highrise where three of my friends reside costs, astonishingly, no more than what I could net on sale of my house!
WTF? These are very nice apartments in a very stylish part of town. Friends’ place overlooks the Phoenix Country Club. The lightrail cruises right past on Central, inviting you to ride up to AJ’s (my favorite gourmet chow line) or down to the Heard Museum or the Phoenix Art Museum or the Civic Center or the East Valley.
The place looks spectacularly expensive, and in fact I recall a friend speculating that one couple we know must have spent an arm and a leg to move in there.
Maybe. Maybe not. One ad shows a two-bedroom palace identical in layout to our friends’ place for right about what my house is worth. These are very pleasant apartments with spectacular views in a choice urban locale.
As I gazed at the photos of this dwelling, it occurred to me that the place is larger, brighter, and far more liveable than the two-bedroom apartment my elderly friends retired to at the Beatitudes, a life-care community. And it ain’t costing its occupants $7,000 a month to live there!
Of course, neither does it provide nursing home insurance for two aged adults. But…but… Think about that. If you were to put 7 grand a month aside, in short order you would have more than enough to cover even a fairly lengthy stay in a nursing home.
The average cost for a two-person room in an Arizona nursing home is $171 a day; for a private room, $212. So, hmmmm….. $212 a day comes to a tab of $6572 for ONE month in a nursing home, for ONE person. That’s less than my friends at the life-care community are spending per month — but for two people. In other words, between the two of them, in 60 days they spend enough to put each of them up in a nursing home for a month.
Hm. The average stay in a nursing home is 835 days, we’re told (by a not altogether unbiased source…). That’s about 27 months. Clearly, a hefty monthly set-aside will cover nothing like the amount of time you’ll be warehoused. That doesn’t include the care you would need at home; apparently many people receive several months of this kind of assistance. Fidelity estimates a couple will spend $245,000 on healthcare ABOVE AND BEYOND nursing care. Holy shit.
On the other hand, these figures are not the only ones out there. A 2009 study showed the median length of stay for those who did not die in the nursing home was 5 months.
The median length of stay was only 5 months (IQR 1-20). The majority of residents had short lengths of stay, 65% of decedents had lengths of stay of less than one year, and over 53% died within 6 months of admission.
At $6572/month for each of my two friends in the old-folkerie, a 27-month stay would cost just ONE of them $177,444. Meanwhile, to live on the campus in a two-bedroom apartment, in the run-up (we might say) to the nursing-home stay, my friends are presumably paying $3500 apiece: we’re told the tab is 7 grand for the two of them. Each of them is effectively being charged $3500 a month to stay in a tiny two-bedroom apartment until such time as they need the nursing home (IF they need the nursing home).
Okay. $6572 for each person for nursing home care, right? The buy-in at this old-folkerie is $350,000±. If one of them keels over today, that $350,000 would cover 53.3 months of nursing-home care: twice as long as the exaggerated median stay cited by companies who want you to buy nursing-home insurance or buy into a life-care community (i.e., just about enough to cover a median stay for each of them, if you believe those figures). It’s ten times as long as the median stay reported by an unbiased research study. If they both keel over today, their buy-in would cover each of them for about 26 months.
But the buy-in isn’t all. Even after ponying up the entire sale price of their home just to get in the door, they’re still paying $7,000/month in rent on their cramped apartment: $3500 apiece from now until they croak over. And…for each month that they spend that $3,500 apiece, they pony up the cost of almost two months in the nursing home.
Fifty-three months of coverage for the buy-in price alone? Yes. That does add up to ten times the median nursing home stay, as calculated by research that is not dedicated to scaring the bedoodles out of old folks. But okay, that 7 grand is for two people: only slightly more than the median cost of a month’s nursing home stay, per partner.
Hm.
So, if you were to take your $350,000 and park yourself in 1 Lexington Avenue, deep in the heart of Phoenix’s endlessly gentrifying North Central corridor, in comparison with what you would get for $350,000 at the old-folkerie, you would have…
- A significantly larger and nicer apartment…
- …in a vibrant part of the city that is NOT adjacent to the meth-ridden, crime-infested Conduit of Blight Boulevard, as is the case for the old-folkerie in question
- A concierge parked in the lobby
- The lightrail within steps of the front door
- $7,000 a month in your pocket, which would buy a WHOLE lot of in-home care for the two of you, or, should the occasion arise, two months of nursing home care per one month of $7,000 set-aside
- Entertainment, cultural events, restaurants, and a very fancy grocery store along that light-rail line
- Freedom from surveillance by hired nannies
- A private residential environment (albeit in an apartment building), as opposed to an institutional environment
The more I think about this, the more I think…wow! That’s the answer!
The one and only thing gives me pause about moving into one of those places right now: the dog.
I can’t imagine what I would do with Ruby. Schlepping her up and down a tower in an elevator several times a day so she can be marched around until she does her business does not seem even faintly practical. It would be out of the question if I happened to be as sick as I have been over the past three months, what with a case of bronchitis and then a fall that has spavined a hand and a leg. Unless you lived on the ground floor, you simply couldn’t have a dog…and there are no ground-floor apartments in that place.
If I moved in there now — which as a practical matter might be advisable — I’d have to find another home for Ruby. And I don’t wanna.
Ruby is about five years old now. The median life-span for corgis is 12.5 years, though some have been known to go as long as 16 or 18 years. Assuming she’s typical, she should live another seven years. In seven years, I’ll be 82.
That’s not an unreasonable age to move to an old-folkerie. However, this house is costing me significantly more, when you count in details such as property tax and homeowner’s insurance and the cost of the pool and the yard, than one of those apartments would cost, even with the $333/month property tax and the $716/month HOA fees and the $88/month homeowner’s insurance. I think.
But…
It looks a great deal as though the monthly costs there would be much higher than they are here, primarily because the property tax is much higher here and because I pay no HOA fees, exorbitant or otherwise. My homeowner’s insurance is significantly higher, but not THAT much higher.
By way of comparison, if you add the property tax, the HOA fee, and the homeowner’s insurance, you get a base cost per month of $1,137 to live in that place. That, of course, doesn’t include water, electric, and whatever they charge you to park in their garage. If you add up my present property tax, homeowner’s insurance, Gerardo’s bill, and the pool guy’s bill, you get $460 a month. [Of course, that doesn’t include the occasional but inevitable hits like roof repair, air-conditioning and plumbing repair, or the breath-taking water and power bills…but stlll…it’s nigh enough unto apples-to-apples.]
!!!
That’s a far cry from $1137 a month. And from the 7 grand a month we’re told our friends are paying over at the old-folkerie.
What do you get, compared to the Funny Farm, for that $1137/month?
- Greater security
- A concierge
- Proximity to a credible (though not ideal) hospital
- Public transit right out the front door
- Cultural attractions, restaurants, and shopping within walking distance
- Less space to have to take care of
- A stunning view of the entire East Valley
- A prestigious address
- If you like to travel, a place where you can just lock the door and take off whenever you please
- And probably lots fewer burglaries, cop helicopter fly-overs, and drug-addicted bums
What do you NOT get? Ahhh…there’s the rub! You don’t get…
- Two Arizona sweets and a Myer lemon that are laden with fruit just now
- A pool where you can skinny-dip every day of the spring, summer, and fall
- Goodly distance between you and the closest neighbor
- Ruby the Corgi
- A shady neighborhood of million-dollar homes through which to walk the corgi
- A neighborhood park
- Young upwardly mobile neighbors moving in with their cute little kids
- A Sprouts within walking distance (not that one would walk down Conduit of Blight Blvd to get there…but still…)
- A Walmart Neighborhood Grocery (a bigger asset than we of the snooty upper middle class would like to admit) within a five-minute drive
- Friendly neighbors in a politically active neighborhood association
- Cops regularly watching the place from helicopters
- A garage in which to park your car right outside your kitchen door
So it goes.
Just now, it looks to me like the pro’s of staying in a house that’s much larger than I need, located next to a dangerous meth slum, outweigh the pro’s of moving into a (very nice!) mid-town apartment that’s half the size of the Funny Farm. For less money but at the cost of having to stay alert to what’s going on around me, I get more space, a private pool and yard, great neighbors, and Ruby the Corgi.
People take their dogs in elevators all the time, so I don’t see why taking her in and out of an elevator would be a problem?
The loss of a pool I could see, but if there is a private pool nearby you could join, I imagine the lack of pool costs would more than cover the cost of a privat pool membership.
Heck the reduced water bills and electric bills (running a pool filter 24/7 is costly on electric I imagine) plus all the money you throw at that pool money pit would more than compensate for HOA fees (you’d come out ahead). Plus electric is much cheaper for cooling/heating in a building since you have extra insulation from other condos around you. And usually property taxes are lower since it’s not a detatched single occupancy home.
Also keep in mind that by living in a building with others, you probably can get hooked up with a cleaning person/supplemental dog walker/grocery delivery who is also serving someone else in the building and could therefore add you to their client base at a reduced rate.
I’m a huge fan of aging in place, but doing so in a reasonable to clean/manage place. This is why we got my mom a 1100 square foot house nearby and we do her yardwork. The place is small enough that she can clean by herself. And it’s all one floor which is rare in our SE PA area.
But I also see that if your church is closeby or a best friend is close, it’s hard to give up. But if you’re already driving to church and the best friend, why stay in a house? You could drive from the condo.
There’s obviously much more nuance for deciding to move/stay but perhaps testing the real estate waters for your current house may be inspirational enough to make that decision for you. Spring is a good time to sell if it works out to go that route. 🙂
So I roll out of the sack at 4, 5, 6 in the morning, wearing an old oversized T-shirt and a pair of cheap underpants, My legs and feet are bare. Ruby needs to go out. I need to go to to the bathroom.
Here at the Funny Farm, I stumble into the kitchen, open the door, turn around, and stumble off to the bathroom while Ruby charges outdoors to do her thing and chase a few birds.
There: four o’clock in the morning is not a good time to be out on Central Avenue or its side streets, or next to the wide-open parking garage where the bums are sleeping and the burglars are searching for unlocked vehicles. Five o’clock isn’t much better. In any event, to take her outdoors, I have to go out in public.
So I roll out of the sack. Pull on jeans, a shirt, and a jacket. Search for my shoes. Find them, put those on. If it’s four or five a.m., I pack a pistol with me. And whatever time it is, I drop a cell phone in a pocket, should I need to call for help.
Now I schlep up the hall to the elevator lobby. Wait for an elevator to show up. Meanwhile, Ruby NEEDS TO GO. Come to think of it, so do I, but I can’t make her wait for 15 to 30 minutes while a 75-year-old body decides to function.
What do I do if she craps or even just pees in the elevator, or on the carpet in the elevator lobby? I have no clue, but you can be sure it will be an embarrassing hassle. At five years old, she probably won’t, but as doggy bodies age, they present as many problems in that department as an aging human body does.
We get outside and now we wait for her to do her business. And wait. And walk. And wait. And walk. And wait… Whenever she gets around to it, I have to clean up after her and find a garbage can to deposit that mess.
This is a process that will have to occur three or four times a day.
Now we have to get back inside the building — I will need a key or a key card to accomplish this, unless a concierge is sitting in the lobby at 4 in the morning. Back to the elevator. Wait. Back into the elevator. Back up the hall to the apartment.
If it actually IS four in the morning, after this refreshing gambit I certainly am in no mood to go back to sleep. So, what have we got? A five-hour, four-hour night? Four or five hours of sleep makes for a pleasant day…
Nope. Keeping a dog in a place like that is just not very practical.
My house is only 1800 square feet. One bedroom is used as a storage room and the other just sits there, so as a practical matter the area that is lived in can’t be more than 1000 or 1100 square feet. I have a cleaning lady, bless her magnificent heart, and do not need to lift a finger to clean this place. I have a yard man and a pool guy, and so never do any work outside anymore. Landscaping is xeric, so water use is fairly minimal. Aside from the replastering, the pool is not expensive to run, now that the pool guy has the algae fiasco under control; the pump runs 4 hours a day in the winter and about 6 or 8 hours in the summer. I do not run the heater in the winter, and so what runs up the power bill is summertime air-conditioning, which you surely will not evade anywhere in southern Arizona, not even in a high-rise.
If I didn’t have the dog, it would probably be 6 of 1, half-a-dozen of the other, with a possible slight advantage to the high-rise. But with a dog…the freestanding house and yard have the advantage, hands-down.