Housing Decisions Families Ignore Completely
Here’s a conversation I have far too often with Michigan families in their late 70s about housing decisions families ignore completely: “We never thought about this.” They’re talking about where they’ll live as they age, how they’ll receive care, and most importantly, how they’ll pay for it all without bankrupting the healthy spouse or burdening their children.
The problem? By the time we’re having this conversation, many of their best options have disappeared. Waiting lists are years long. Health requirements exclude them. And the financial flexibility they had a decade earlier is gone. What should have been a thoughtful, strategic decision made from a position of strength has become a crisis management situation.
The Six-Figure Housing Decision Most Plans Ignore
When we build retirement plans for Michigan families, we typically account for healthcare costs, long-term care needs, and legacy goals. But there’s a massive blind spot in most plans: where you’ll actually live during your 80s and 90s, and how that choice fundamentally changes your financial and care strategy.
This isn’t just about picking a nice community or downsizing your home. It’s about answering a critical question that affects everything else in your plan: How will housing and care be delivered, coordinated, and paid for as your needs change?
Most families default to “aging in place” without stress-testing what that actually means. Sure, staying in your home sounds great—until you need round-the-clock care. Then you’re looking at $150,000 or more annually for home health aides, coordinating multiple service providers, and placing an enormous burden on your spouse or adult children who likely live out of state.
Why Housing Decisions Families Ignore Come Back to Haunt Them
The demographics tell a stark story. More Americans are living into their 80s and 90s than ever before. About 70% of people who reach age 65 will need some form of long-term care. And here’s what really concerns me: most of those care years will be spent managing chronic conditions while trying to maintain independence.
For Michigan families specifically, these housing decisions families ignore completely create unique challenges. Our winters make aging in place more difficult and dangerous. Many of our adult children have relocated for work, meaning informal caregiving isn’t realistic. And with the five-year look-back period for Medicaid, the window for proactive planning is smaller than most families realize.
Understanding Your Real Housing Options: Decisions Families Ignore
When I walk families through this decision, I break it down into four fundamental approaches to housing and care:
Aging in Place: This is the default assumption in most plans. You stay in your home and coordinate care as needed. The upside? You maintain your independence and familiar surroundings. The downside? All the risk falls on you and your family. As health declines, you’re managing multiple service providers, escalating costs, and increasing caregiver burden on your spouse or children. Monthly costs can range from minimal to $15,000+ once 24-hour care is needed.
55+ Rental Communities: These offer a middle ground—simplified housing without the care coordination. You get maintenance-free living and some social infrastructure, but when health needs increase, you’re still managing care externally. Think of this as aging in place with nicer amenities.
Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRCs): This is where things get interesting from a planning perspective. CCRCs bundle housing, services, community, and prioritized access to care into one system. You might pay a significant entrance fee—often $200,000 to $500,000 in Michigan—plus monthly fees of $3,000 to $6,000. But here’s what you’re actually buying: you’re transferring the coordination risk from your family to the institution.
Assisted Living or Skilled Nursing: These are typically accessed reactively after a health event. They’re not proactive planning choices—they’re where families end up when other plans have failed.
The CCRC Question: Housing Decisions Families Ignore Until It’s Expensive
Let me be direct: CCRCs often look shockingly expensive when you view them purely as housing. A $400,000 entrance fee? Monthly costs that rival a mortgage payment? It’s easy to dismiss them outright.
But here’s where the analysis changes. CCRCs aren’t housing—they’re comprehensive housing-and-care systems that fundamentally alter your risk profile.
Think about what happens when one spouse in a couple needs memory care. In the aging-in-place scenario, the healthy spouse becomes the default caregiver. They’re managing medications, coordinating doctor appointments, handling behavioral changes, and watching their own health deteriorate from the stress. I’ve seen it destroy families.
In a CCRC, that same situation looks completely different. The spouse needing memory care transitions to the community’s memory care unit. The healthy spouse remains in their independent living apartment, visits regularly, and maintains their own quality of life. The community handles the care coordination, the medical oversight, the activities of daily living. The healthy spouse remains a spouse, not a burned-out caregiver.
For solo agers and widows—which describes many of our clients—this distinction is even more critical. Without a spouse or nearby children, who coordinates your care when you can’t do it yourself? A CCRC provides that continuity without forcing adult children to become crisis coordinators while managing their own families and careers hundreds of miles away.
The Tax Planning Piece Most Families Overlook
Here’s something that can significantly change the math: a portion of CCRC fees may qualify as deductible medical expenses under IRS rules. Depending on your contract type and individual tax situation, this can include both part of the entrance fee and ongoing monthly costs.
I’ve had clients take the full deduction in a high-income year—perhaps following a business sale or significant retirement account distribution during the TCJA’s lower tax rate window. Others amortize it over time to create ongoing deductions. This isn’t theoretical—it’s money back in your pocket that partially offsets the higher headline cost.
Obviously, this requires coordination with your CPA and depends on your specific situation. But it’s a planning lever most families don’t even know exists.
When to Address Housing Decisions Before It’s Too Late
Here’s the pattern I see constantly: clients in their late 60s and early 70s tell me they’re “too young” to think about this. Then they reach their late 70s and suddenly they’re too sick, wait lists are too long, or they can no longer meet health requirements for admission.
The sweet spot for this conversation? Late 60s to early 70s, when you’re still healthy, financially flexible, and have the emotional bandwidth to evaluate options strategically rather than reactively.
Think of it like a trapeze act—you need to let go of one phase before you can grab the next. Waiting too long means you fall instead of transition smoothly.
Housing Decisions Families Ignore: Michigan-Specific Considerations
For families in Michigan, several factors make this planning even more critical:
First, our property tax structure means that moving from your primary residence can trigger significant tax implications. Understanding these before you make the move is essential.
Second, Michigan’s Medicaid rules around asset protection and the five-year look-back mean that CCRC entrance fees need to be evaluated against other asset protection strategies. Sometimes a CCRC makes sense. Sometimes you’re better served by implementing a Castle Trust and aging in place. The answer depends on your complete financial picture.
Third, the quality and availability of CCRCs varies significantly across Michigan. Southeastern Michigan has more options than rural areas. Knowing what’s actually available in your target location matters.
The Real Question Families Should Be Asking
Instead of “Can we afford a CCRC?”, the better question is: “Which risks are we willing to manage ourselves, and which do we want to transfer to an institution?”
Aging in place means you’re managing all the risks—cost volatility, care coordination, family burden, and the uncertainty of how your needs will evolve. A CCRC transfers many of those risks to the community in exchange for upfront and ongoing costs.
Neither answer is universally right or wrong. It depends on your values, your family situation, your health trajectory, and your financial resources.
But here’s what I know after decades of working with Michigan families: the families who have these conversations early, who map out multiple scenarios, who understand the full implications of each path—those families make better decisions. They maintain more control. They reduce stress on their children. And they protect their financial security.
What These Ignored Housing Decisions Mean for Your Plan
If you’re in your late 60s or early 70s and haven’t stress-tested your housing and care strategy, this deserves attention before health issues narrow your options. If you’re caring for aging parents who haven’t addressed this, it’s worth raising the conversation now while they still have choices.
This isn’t about pushing anyone toward a particular solution. These housing decisions families ignore completely need to be addressed so your plan reflects intentional choices rather than default assumptions. Because the difference between planning proactively and reacting to crisis isn’t just money—it’s autonomy, dignity, and peace of mind for you and your family.
The families who plan ahead rarely regret it. The ones who wait almost always do.
Want to explore how different housing and care strategies fit into your specific situation? Let’s talk. We can model the scenarios, examine the tradeoffs, and help you make an informed decision while you still have all your options on the table.
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