Brightview Fallsgrove

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to tour Brightview Fallsgrove, an assisted living and memory care community in Rockville.  Wendy Papuchis, the Community Sales Director, was my tour guide.  She was extremely knowledgeable and enthusiastic about Brighview Fallsgrove, and I enjoyed my time with her very much.

There are 70 Assisted Living apartments at Fallsgrove, and 24 specialized dementia care apartments (this specialized dementia care part of the neighborhood is called Wellspring Village).  Brightview Fallsgrove is a lease community, meaning other than a one-time only community fee (right now it’s around $5000), you pay by the month for your apartment, rather than having to buy in to the community.  You are required to sign a one-year lease when moving into Brightview Fallsgrove, but you can easily get out of the lease with 30 days notice.

Brightview Fallsgrove’s public spaces had a warm and cozy feel to them.  Above and below are a couple of pictures of their bistro area, where residents can come and grab coffee and a snack and socialize whenever they’d like.

There are several apartment choices for residents in different sizes—studios, one bedroom, and two bedroom units are all available.  The care residents receive is more bundled than in other assisted living places I’ve visited.  Everyone receives 5 hours of care as part of their monthly rent.  If a resident needs more than that, they can pay extra for different care plans.

Brightview Fallsgrove focuses on resident choice and resident independence.  Everyone has a personalized care plan there.  Not every resident needs, for instance, a night check, or a lot of care.  There’s no nurses station, which helps give Brightview Fallsgrove more of a community feeling.  There are aides around, however, to help residents whenever they need it.  They can wear a call pendant and just press a button if they need help.  Every resident has a primary aide, so that the aide and resident have a chance to get to know one another.  There are also wellness nurses on staff to provide care to the residents, along with a number of specialists and therapists under contract that provide in-house services.

Residents are allowed to come and go when they please, and to attend (or not) whatever events and classes they choose.  There are also no visiting hours—visitors are welcome whenever they’d like to come.  The dining room has specific meal times, but it’s also open all day, if someone wants to just drop by at a non-meal time for something light like soup or a sandwich.

Brightview Fallsgrove seems like a pleasant and flexible place to live.  But it provides the care residents expect from an assisted living or memory care community.

Why Use a Senior Real Estate Specialist - Part One

There are lots of real estate agents in our area, and most of them do a great job.  They are nice people, they work hard, and they want to do the best they can do for each of their clients.  But most real estate agents are generalists—they don’t specialize in any area of real estate, because they don’t want to limit themselves.

But by specializing in nothing, they are left with a knowledge base that is very broad and very shallow.

I believe that there are enough circumstances that are unique to older adults moving that they deserve to have a real estate agent who specializes in their needs and circumstances.  Let me give you an example from my own family’s history.

My grandmother was 90 and living alone in Florida when she decided it was time to move closer to her children.  Her children were all at least 10 hours away by car.  She was an extremely capable and smart lady (not to mention fun and the best grandmother ever), so she basically moved herself.  She found her own realtor, sold her car, packed up, sold, or gave away all of her things, and moved up to North Carolina.  But, it turns out she was more overwhelmed by the move than she was willing to let on.  We discovered later that she had just thrown all of her family history in the trash—including all of her photo albums and photos, of relatives through generations.   She felt very bad about it later, and certainly her children, my father and aunt, very much wish she had given them those pictures and albums.  If she had hired a senior real estate specialist, the person could have talked her through what she needed to do in order to move, and suggested bringing in an organizer or senior move specialist to help her.  That person would’ve made sure that my grandmother kept the things that were most important to her.

Most people only make a big downsizing move once in their lives, so they don’t have the benefit of experience and learning from their mistakes to make sure they do it right.  But if they use a senior real estate specialist, they can benefit from that person’s wisdom and experience.

If you live in the Washington, DC area (DC, MD or VA), I can help.  If you live outside of the DC area, I would be happy to refer you to a senior real estate specialist inyour area. 

Organizers - Just That Simple

There are quite a few professions you may not realize even exist, especially in the realm of helping people ready a home for sale.  As part of my commitment to seniors, who may need extra help with a move, I have been meeting with organizations that offer different kinds of help to people who need or want to move.

I had the pleasure of meeting with Judy Tiger a few weeks ago.  She’s the owner of Just That Simple, a home and office organizing business based in the DC Metro Area.  Judy grew up in a Foreign Service family, and has a lot of experience with moving.  Her goal is to come into a home and help people sort through all of their belongings and decide what to do with them.  This isn’t necessarily a service just aimed at people who are getting ready to move—sometimes someone is so overwhelmed by all the stuff in their home that it helps to bring someone in just to reclaim and enjoy their space again.

Judy typically comes into someone’s home for at least 4 hours at time, though she reduces that time down to two hours if someone is elderly or seems easily fatigued.  She goes through their belongings, with their feedback and involvement, and sorts things into piles (typically the piles might be trash, donate, keep, and sell).   She then arranges for the things to be trashed, donated, kept, etc.). She said she often helps people designate piles for each of their children, if they are moving out of a longtime residence and into something smaller.  If the client is moving, she will sort things into color-coded boxes for them, for easier unpacking.  Sometimes the task can be accomplished in one visit, and sometimes multiple or on-going visits are needed.

If you’re interested in learning more about Judy and Just That Simple, you can go to her website at www.just-that-simple.net.

ManorCare Bethesda and Wheaton

Dining Room of ManorCare Bethesda

Last week I toured HCR ManorCare Bethesda with Chris Gloth, the Admissions Coordinator there.  The week before I toured HCR ManorCare Wheaton with Yalda Davoodi, the Admissions Director there.  HCR ManorCare has centers throughout the region that are leading providers of short-term, post-acute services, and long-term care.  ManorCare has centers in Adelphi, Chevy Chase, Hyattsville, Largo, Potomac, and Silver Spring, in addition to the ones in Wheaton and Bethesda that I’ve toured.  The centers are all a fairly intimate size, which helps give them a greater sense of community.

For the purposes of what I do (selling seniors’ homes and offering them help in all steps of the process, including guidance about places they could downsize to), the long-term care aspect of HRC Manorcare is most interesting to me.  ManorCare Wheaton really only admits patients to its short-term care facility (people recovering from surgery, etc.).  They also have a long-term care wing, but it is filled with people who enter for short-term care and then are unable to return home on their own.  ManorCare Bethesda has both long-term and short-term areas, and people can arrange to stay there for either one. 

Both ManorCare facilities that I toured have dining rooms where residents take their meals.  Visitors are able to join them for meals for a small extra charge.  Visiting hours are 24 hours a day for the private rooms, and 9am – 9pm for the semi-private rooms.  They also both have rehab centers that offer all kinds of therapy (physical, speech, occupational) for people recovering from surgery or trauma.  They also both have activity calendars, offering residents a variety of things to do.

ManorCare offers private and semi-private rooms, and it does accept Medicaid.  There are on-site beauty salon and barber services.  They also have medical directors, 24-hour nursing care, other medical services such as dental care and optometric care available by appointment.

Many thanks to Chris Gloth and Yalda Davoodi for sharing their time and expertise with me!

Ten Reasons to Downsize

There are probably as many reasons to downsize (or right size) as there are people in the world, but I definitely hear some reasons over and over.  Do any of these resonate with you?

10. Tired of yard work – Many people enjoy working in the yard when they are first-time home buyers, but the thrill gradually wears off for many people.  By the time you’ve been a homeowner for many years, it’s just one more chore on your list, and you’re often paying a landscaping company to do it.

9. Master bedroom on the first floor – Not everyone is ready to actually live in a smaller home, but most people are ready to no longer have to climb stairs multiple times a day, to get to their bedroom or a bathroom.

8. Want to be able to walk places – Many people move to the suburbs for better schools for their children or big yards.  Once the kids are gone, though, they decide to move where they can walk to shops, restaurants, and other fun things.  This is a nationwide trend for all ages, but it seems to be especially big for baby boomers who are empty nesters.

7.  Don’t want so much house to care for – There’s much more cleaning to be done in a larger home.  You’re also paying higher utility bills to heat and cool areas of the home you no longer use.

6.  Be closer to family – In our mobile society, adult children often move far from their parents.  If parents are retired, it is often easier for them to move to where their children are then vice versa.

5. Move somewhere warmer – Washington DC, Maryland, and Virginia certainly don’t have the terrible winters that some places in our country do, but it can still be grey and cold for long stretches.  Plus sometimes we even have major snowfalls!  If you’re retired and can live anywhere you choose, you might want to live somewhere warmer.

4. Live in a vacation destination – Beaches, mountains, tropical islands, Europe.  The possibilities are endless.  If you choose to move to a vacation destination, you not only get to enjoy it year round, but you are virtually assured that lots of friends and family will want to come and visit you!

3. Feeling lonely and bored – Staying in the home you’ve lived in forever can be isolating if you don’t have an active social life nearby.  Moving to 55+ housing or a senior living community can really improve your quality of life.  There are lots of activities to choose from everyday and lots of people around who are eager to make friends just like you.

2. Boost your retirement fund – If you’ve owned your home for more than 15 years, chances are it’s gone up in value substantially.  By selling your home and downsizing into something less expensive, you’ve likely freed up a large chunk of money to add to your retirement fund.  And that’s never a bad thing.  Don’t forget that the money you make from selling your home is free from capital gains taxes for up to $250,000 for a single person and up to $500,000 for a married couple.

1. Lower taxes – Many retired people choose to move to places like Delaware and Florida for the lower taxes as much as for the beaches and lifestyle.   Sales tax, property tax, income tax, and even the estate tax are lower or nonexistent.  This is a way that many people are able to stretch their retirement income.

What other reasons did you decide to downsize or right size?  Feel free to share in the comments section below.

If downsizing makes sense to you but you’re not doing it, ask yourself why.  If it’s because the idea of moving just feels overwhelming, get in touch with me.  I can help you come up with a plan for selling your home and moving that will make things more manageable, and I can bring in other service providers to help you handle the details of moving that seem too hard to tackle alone.  If you don’t live in the DC area, I can put you in touch with a realtor that specializes in this in your area.