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SettingYour Timetable
By Jared March
Before proceeding with the actual research of your chosen
communities, I want to present the following summary which shows
the chronological order of key steps in your decision making
process.
By knowing when each step in the process occurs… you will be
better prepared to speak
with salespeople at the various communities you will visit. The
key to this timetable is your preferred "move in" date. This is
where you (and your spouse) really have to
be honest and admit your true timing desire.
- Discussion of
retirement and moving
to new home
- Sample visits to several
retirement communities
- Light discussions with
friends and family
- Decision to leave old
house for new home
- Set date of occupancy.
Your move-in date. (This date sets up the entire purchase
process) Looking ahead to try and fix a date to move into your
new home will be difficult. Procrastination will be easier to
accomplish than positive action toward your goal.
1. "Moving is a pain in the neck! We'll have to clean up the
house and get it ready for sale. It may require too many
expenditures on repairs to bring it up to marketable condition.
It will be impossible to clean out the closets, basement and
attic. There are just too many memories in the house and there
is just too much stuff that we'll have to give away or throw
out."
2. "We really love our old house. It's
not our fault that we've gotten older and can't do the yardwork
anymore. It's not our fault that we're not working now and have
to start to restrict our expenditures due to our fixed income
level. It's not our fault that all of our friends have moved
away. "Why can't it
be like it used to be?"
3. "My wife really wants to move, I
don't. If she wasn't pushing for this, we would stay right where
we are with our friends, and the doctors, and everything just as
it is. But, I guess if she wants it, I'll go
along."
4. "We're just really looking now.
We have plenty of time to make this decision. Our health is good
right now. We
have time."
5. Children frequently add so much pain to the decision because
they don't want their
parents to move. There may be a new
grandchild or one on the way.
6. One or both of you may still be working and either don't want
to retire or don't know when your company is going to give you
an early release.
7. So many NEW communities are coming on the scene that you may
be afraid to buy for fear you will miss out on the next better
community. (You don't realize that prices will be higher the
longer you delay the decision.)
8. You wonder what will happen to you if you move and one of you
gets sick or dies. What wil the other one do? "Will I want to
return to my old neighborhood or will I stay because we made the
decision to move together?" I could go on and on. I think you
understand that the over fifty-five buyer will have a tendency
to delay this purchase for a lot of reasons. But this is good.
It can make you a more careful buyer and one that is very
certain of their decision when it is finally made. Since it has
been my personal sales experience in this market that the
typical buyer will visit a community four or five times before
placing a deposit, I have learned to make each one of these
visits count. I begin to talk about the preferred move-in date
as early as possible. When buyers learn tha builders need four
to five months to build their home they start to realize the
process will take longer than they had figured. Once they see
this timeline and understand it,
it will become apparent that a date
MUST be targeted for the approximate desired occupancy. But,
please do not feel
uncomfortable if your are uncertain about when you REALLY want
to move. A good
salesperson will guide you through the planning process and will
also understand if you decide to stay put and not move at all.
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