AARP Eye Center
The Takeaway: Boomers Plan Not To Sell Homes In Retirement; Joan Didion 'Making No Adjustment To Aging'
By Elizabeth Nolan Brown, October 26, 2011 08:40 AM
Forget Florida: For boomers coming of age, there are retirement housing wants, and then there are realities. According to a new Associated Press-LifeGoesStrong.com poll, while boomers said they'd prefer to retire somewhere close to family, medical care, a more affordable climate or a beach, less than half think they'll actually move to a new home in retirement; 52 percent planned to age in place. 
"There's a mistrust of the real estate market that we didn't have before," said Barbara Corcoran, a New York-based real estate consultant. "There's a concern about whether people will get money out of their house. They envision the home as a problem, not an asset, and this unshakable belief in homes as a tool for retirement has been shaken to the core."
And as the value of their homes has fallen, so has the value of their so-called nest eggs. About 60 percent said they lost money during the recession-workplace retirement plans, personal investments and real estate all took a hit. Seventy-three percent said they planned to keep working into their retirement years, up from 67 percent in a March poll.
Boomers least likely to find moving from their current homes a retirement possibility: Midwesterners, rural residents, older baby boomers and those who've lived in their current home for 20 or more years. Of those who wanted or planned to move when they retired, the most common reasons given were to buy a smaller place (40%), be closer to medical offices or hospitals (39%), live in a different/warmer climate (30%) or switch to a more affordable house (25%). Only 15 percent said they planned to move to be closer to family; 10 percent wanted a city with more services and 8 percent said they were looking for a larger home.
Didion Explores Aging, Losing Daughter: The latest memoir from Joan Didion, Blue Nights, details the author's loss of her only child, adopted daughter Quintana Roo (who was only 39), along with Didion's own feelings toward parenting, grieving and aging. Didion famously explored her husband's death in a previous book, The Year of Magical Thinking. In a New York Magazine profile, Didion, 76, said that in the wake of both her husband's and daughter's deaths, she kept working, continued seeing friends and refused to take a vacation.
A doctor said she was making an "inadequate adjustment to aging." She corrected him: She was making no adjustment to aging.
Didion instead began work on her latest book, which will be released in November.
Wednesday Quick Hits:
- Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry said he would end the tax on Social Security benefits for older Americans, allow younger workers to privatize Social Security accounts, and launch an optional 20 percent flat income tax rate.
- Exercise may help reduce your risk of getting glaucoma.
- Camilla Parker-Bowles, the 64-year-old Duchess of Cornwall, worries that eating disorders and drastic dieting by young women are making their bodies 'ticking time-bombs' for osteoporosis.
- A new report from the American Medical Association found 83 percent of metropolitan areas in the U.S. lack a competitive health insurance market.
- And long-term health care costs in this country rose 5.6 percen this year, led by assisted-living expenses, life insurer MetLife Inc. reports.
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(Photo: Bertrand Demee/Getty Images)