My wife and I recently decided to put our house up for sale and got a fresh lesson on planning and transitions.
Once we decided to sell, we did some paperwork with our real-estate agent, who also walked through our place, suggesting we finish a few projects and consider some upgrades in key areas.
Excited about the possibilities ahead, we worked quickly to fix things like tightening the handrail, fixing a leaky faucet, and re-caulking the downstairs bathroom to freshen it up. And it worked! We sold our house in 2 days, but that was just the first step in the process.
Next, the buyers requested an inspection of the home. They hired a former building inspector who walked around our house for three hours looking, touching, and smelling every inch of the house.
We expected a few issues to come up and that we might need to make some small concessions for things we couldn’t see. Let’s just say we were blindsided when they requested over 10 times what we anticipated.
I was surprised because I’m not a complete novice. I spent my high school and college summers working landscape as well as construction, and am not afraid to tackle some more advanced DIY projects. However, I didn’t see any of this stuff coming.
Turns out the vent stack coming out of our hot water tank heater was only 3 inches wide yet code requires 4½ inches. We also had some sort of temperature activated “B vent” on our furnace that was a known hazard for causing carbon monoxide.
They also wanted new GFI outlets in the laundry room, a new condenser pump installed on the AC unit, and a plastic hose from our water softener replaced with PVC to avoid any crimping.
It was a total buzz kill. We had worked hard to get to this point and felt like we had most of our ducks in a row, and BAM, we got hit with things I had never heard of and that nobody ever warned me about. Moreover, our house looked and was functioning better than any other time that we lived there for the last 10 years.
It’s a wake-up call that can also happen to people as they prepare to transition into retirement.
They start out like we did, completing some paperwork with their employer and a financial advisor to get the ball rolling. They may have a few extra things to do in the weeks ahead, but feel like they have most of their ducks in a row and are excited about the possibilities ahead.
They don’t feel like novices because they have watched some close friends or family recently retire and they seem to have adjusted just fine. They also understand something minor may come up in the process. Maybe the paperwork takes longer to process so their retirement dates changes by a week or two. Or maybe their first social security check comes in the mail instead of being direct deposited. Nothing major but nonetheless frustrating.
But this is where the home buying process deviates from retirement. The issue with retirement is that there is no inspection. Soon-to-be-retirees don’t hire someone to poke and prod around to make sure their mental and physical life is in good working order, that their social network won’t get crimped, or that they have the right outlets to feel relevant and accomplished.
The best way to explain it, is they buy into retirement “as is” where they become 100% responsible for any problems that come up no matter how big or costly. Thus, they can end up spending the first few years of retirement living in a construction zone or money pit. All because no one told them they need to plan beyond the stuff they can see or are aware of.
Unfortunately, the traditional retirement planning process is broken and needs to be fixed. It should be required, or at least highly recommended that soon-to-be-retirees go through a comprehensive inspection that includes developing concrete plans for the mental, physical, and social aspects of life in retirement. It will not only help protect all the hard work it took for them to get here, but also ensure a smoother transition.
