ᐅ To what extent do you take aging in place into account when building a home?
Created on: 12 Aug 2016 21:10
M
Mizit
Preliminary remark: we are currently going through a phase where we seriously question all our previous plans. 🙂 I hope this phase is normal.
At the moment, I am concerned about to what extent one should consider living arrangements for old age when planning the floor plan. With the layouts we have favored so far, living in old age with the perhaps typical difficulties would not be easy.
We are currently planning a guest bathroom with a shower on the ground floor, but it will be somewhere between 3.5–5 square meters (38–54 square feet), and a large, barrier-free shower would probably not be possible there, nor would there be enough space to enter the bathroom with a walker, for example. Generally, I have always considered having a bedroom on the ground floor as a practical option for later, but it seems to me that especially these "catalog floor plans" for series-built houses do not provide for a sufficiently large bedroom on the ground floor, nor a sufficiently large bathroom.
It’s not that we only just became aware that we might hopefully live to be 90 and perhaps won’t be able to manage stairs anymore. We simply haven’t prioritized the question of living in the house in old age. Basically, we still see a lot of value in the idea that we might give the single-family home to one of our children in 30 years or rent it out in order to move back to the city ourselves, and so on.
But maybe in 20 years we will see things very differently. Maybe we will be very attached to this place, this house, and perhaps we cannot imagine selling the family home of our children, and so on.
In that case, it wouldn’t be unwise to plan so that it would be possible to live entirely on the ground floor at some point, possibly separate the upper floors as a separate apartment and rent them out. But then it might be necessary to plan some things differently now...
How important has this aspect been for you?
At the moment, I am concerned about to what extent one should consider living arrangements for old age when planning the floor plan. With the layouts we have favored so far, living in old age with the perhaps typical difficulties would not be easy.
We are currently planning a guest bathroom with a shower on the ground floor, but it will be somewhere between 3.5–5 square meters (38–54 square feet), and a large, barrier-free shower would probably not be possible there, nor would there be enough space to enter the bathroom with a walker, for example. Generally, I have always considered having a bedroom on the ground floor as a practical option for later, but it seems to me that especially these "catalog floor plans" for series-built houses do not provide for a sufficiently large bedroom on the ground floor, nor a sufficiently large bathroom.
It’s not that we only just became aware that we might hopefully live to be 90 and perhaps won’t be able to manage stairs anymore. We simply haven’t prioritized the question of living in the house in old age. Basically, we still see a lot of value in the idea that we might give the single-family home to one of our children in 30 years or rent it out in order to move back to the city ourselves, and so on.
But maybe in 20 years we will see things very differently. Maybe we will be very attached to this place, this house, and perhaps we cannot imagine selling the family home of our children, and so on.
In that case, it wouldn’t be unwise to plan so that it would be possible to live entirely on the ground floor at some point, possibly separate the upper floors as a separate apartment and rent them out. But then it might be necessary to plan some things differently now...
How important has this aspect been for you?
N
nightdancer14 Aug 2016 11:05If you want to approach this topic thoroughly, it starts with choosing the right location and ends with considering future maintenance costs. From what I have seen, many houses being built today will be unsuitable for retirees with mostly limited incomes 30 to 40 years from now. They will only be marketable if the location is good. Even now, in my town, a district town in Baden-Württemberg with 25,000 residents, older houses are very hard to sell because the building fabric is simply in poor condition and demolition is the only option. This situation will not improve with the Climate Protection Plan 2050.
U
Username_wahl14 Aug 2016 11:38On the ground floor: wider doors, bathroom with a walk-in shower measuring 1 m² (10.8 ft²), and a study that can be converted into a bedroom. The upper floor can then be used by a child or rented out; connections for a second residential unit are available.
Grym schrieb:
To put this into perspective: those who have built in rural areas and probably can only sell their house well below its value, and who may not be interested in city apartments anyway, should perhaps pay more attention to this. However, you also have to consider the regions. In Saxony, that might be the case, but in the outskirts of Cologne, it’s quite different… here, people want to move to rural areas and prefer to drive a few minutes into the city. Besides, we are talking about completely different land prices—you can compare the official land values in the Cologne surrounding area with those from your region…
We are already building our second and final house, and I intend to live in it for as long as possible. Especially since we are outfitting it to a very high standard; nothing attracts me to the big city, living in an apartment with street noise and inconsiderate neighbors!
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Bauexperte14 Aug 2016 15:30Mizit schrieb:
At the moment, I’m thinking about to what extent one should consider the situation in old age when planning the floor plan. From my point of view: not at all!
You are currently building for yourself/your family and your immediate future; your current/medium-term needs. At your age, it is impossible to know what will be important or necessary in later years, because life can’t be planned 😉
If everything goes “normally” in life, there is no need to take into account any uncertain disabilities, and you will have wasted money, since you will leave your home feet first. If things don’t go as hoped, anything is possible — from personal bankruptcy to accessibility modifications to round-the-clock care.
Considering the declining social benefits and low pensions in Germany, it is rather likely that you will eventually sell your single-family home and either downsize — which could mean building another house, buying a condominium/apartment, or moving into modern retirement residences that offer added services depending on your level of care needs (nurse/24-hour care, etc.).
So focus on the here and now; later on, things will probably turn out differently anyway, since the life models of previous generations no longer apply 😉
Best regards, Bauexperte
We are currently planning as well, and we follow the approach that grym and Bauexperte have already described. It doesn’t make sense to invest a large amount of money now for something that might happen “someday, maybe.”
I also believe that lifestyles, as Bauexperte mentioned, have changed. We need a house that fits us now. We assume we can estimate what will suit us in the coming years. And even that can change. That’s life.
To make it clear:
I do not expect to live in the same house in 30 years. Maybe I will, maybe not. In my personal value system, this is not a goal that holds high priority.
When someone here writes that they have 240 m² (about 2,585 sq ft) of space to be prepared for every eventuality—“better safe than sorry”—I can only say that this represents a completely different mindset, one that does not align with ours at all.
I also believe that lifestyles, as Bauexperte mentioned, have changed. We need a house that fits us now. We assume we can estimate what will suit us in the coming years. And even that can change. That’s life.
To make it clear:
I do not expect to live in the same house in 30 years. Maybe I will, maybe not. In my personal value system, this is not a goal that holds high priority.
When someone here writes that they have 240 m² (about 2,585 sq ft) of space to be prepared for every eventuality—“better safe than sorry”—I can only say that this represents a completely different mindset, one that does not align with ours at all.
We had seen it that way so far as well. Due to the high land prices within the city limits, we have made a compromise that I currently feel is good and right. We are building mainly because of the children: our rented apartment simply does not offer enough space anymore, and renting a larger apartment costs more than paying off a detached house in a neighboring village. But whether I still want to live there in 25 years, I don’t know, and my husband doesn’t either. Passing the house on to a potentially interested child or renting it out were more our considerations.
However, we also thought: if we do not plan any options now, such as having a bedroom on the ground floor or a spacious, barrier-free bathroom there, it is actually already clear that we will have to move out as we get older—even if we might not want to then 🙁
However, we also thought: if we do not plan any options now, such as having a bedroom on the ground floor or a spacious, barrier-free bathroom there, it is actually already clear that we will have to move out as we get older—even if we might not want to then 🙁
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