Are We Winning or Losing?

What we left behind

If you haven’t done so, just consider what it is like to move from 2000 square feet into 1440 square feet of plain, rectangular space. It may not seem like much of a change, but to us it was significant. However, it’s not entirely a matter of square footage, but more of what it contains.

All-in, we traded a two-car garage, four bedroom, two bath, with a den, a large kitchen, a formal dining room, large front yard, and a back yard with large deck and privacy fence — for a two bedroom, two bath, with a kitchen, living room, and sunroom about the size of our former kitchen and living room. It is not something one could consider an equal trade.

Personally, I hated giving up my two-car garage for a carport with a 7′ x 10′ shed, which is what I now call my “workshop.” However, the bedrooms were not a major sacrifice as it’s just her and me here 99% of the time. The smaller second bedroom has a small dresser and television and serves as an exercise room when family isn’t visiting. We simply fold the equipment and open the queen-size Murphy bed.

So, then, why give up the big brick?

There’s a simple answer for that, i.e., trading the larger paycheck for a Social Security check and a small pension has a way of making one see things differently. In other words, you adapt! When the grandchildren visit, we have pullouts and inflatables. It’s merely a matter of rearranging to accommodate, and all is well (provided, of course that the visits are brief.)

Sacrifice has its rewards

As for giving up my den, well, our modular home has a large, 24 ft. wide, by 12 ft. deep, sunroom! In fact, it was the nine large windows overlooking a lake full of wildlife that convinced us to purchase the home. It was something I had dreamed of but never thought possible. Every morning, I watch the sunrise over the lake as it is visited daily by ducks, wood storks, Sandhill cranes, egrets, herons, turtles, cormorants, largemouth bass and other fish, and the occasional otters that come to feed and play for a while. We even have the occasional deer, bear, foxes, racoons, armadillos, possum, snakes, and porcupines. Things that the suburbs could never offer.

The Aberdeen Community

The real joy is living in this beautiful, gated community of 520 homes, owned by Northwestern Mutual and managed by Murex Properties. The community property is well-kept and updated with several very nice amenities for the residents, including a clubhouse and a large, well maintained pool and sauna.

The clubhouse holds a large meeting room and well designed kitchen that is used for various functions within the community, including HOA meetings, bingo games, coffee socials, holiday and other parties, special guest speakers and entertainers, and the like.

Purchasing cheaply

Of course, the first caveat of living here is, you have to purchase a home. In our case, using our equity and savings, we purchased a very inexpensive twenty-year-old, Jacobson home. Essentially gutting it, we did an end-to-end remodel from floor to ceiling, new kitchen, new baths, replacing all the windows and doors (internal and external), installed a new AC unit and hot water tank, resurfaced the driveway, landscaped, laid a stone patio deck, and insulated the carport roof.

The second caveat that comes with the purchase: in a 55+ community there is a monthly rental fee for the property on which your our home sits. Ours is currently just under $1,000 / month with and expected 5–7% annual increase, plus the “pass-through” of our portion of the community property tax.

A third caveat then is: although we receive a Social Security cost-of-living adjustment, it doesn’t come near to covering the rental, health insurance, and cost of living increases, resulting in an effective decrease in income year over year.

Paying the price … A triple threat

Our home purchase was just at $50,000 with an additional $80 – $90,000 to make it into the home we wanted, bringing total investment to more than a $150,000 if you add in all that was done over the past six years. Now, I am not claiming to be a mathematician, but by my calculation, dividing the initial and subsequent investment by 20, and adding 5%/year to the ever-increasing property rental, along with utilities and maintenance cost: should we live here for 20 years (or 240 months), the total estimate divided by 240 puts our average monthly output at about $3,200 – $3,500 per month.
Although there is no place like our modular home, there is a fourth, and even a fifth caveat to living here, i.e., the depreciation, and investment costs. Although it may be worth more today than we paid six years ago, should we decide to sell it, it will never bring back the investment.
There is also a stipulation in the contract that says: “If the home is destroyed by fire or natural disaster, the tenant is required to replace the home with one of equal or better value.” In other words, a renter cannot simply walk away and start again somewhere else should a hurricane or other factor destroy the home. So, as I forgot to do above, add in the thousands of $$$ we are paying annually for homeowners insurance.

There’s No Place Like Your (Modular) Home

As mentioned, the community is beautiful, well kept, and offers numerous amenities, so if you’re thinking about south-central Florida, come on down! There are nearly 40 homes for sale in our community at this time, the vacancies of which came about after the corporate purchase of the property, and there are thousands more elsewhere.

In America, twenty thousand people per day are expected to retire throughout the next decade, and unprecedented number, and the hands are out to collect all of that retirement income from them as fast as they can get hold of it.

So, keep your wits about you, read the fine print, pay attention to the details, and save, save, save, because, if you live long enough, you will need a lot more than you ever thought you would.