7 Tips to Shopping for a Retirement Home

Many retirement-community tours focus on the fun stuff, like swimming pools, cuisine and tee times. These should be the least of your concerns, however, when selecting the last home you're likely to own. It's more important to look at such issues as safety, cleanliness and whether a home can cater to your present and future health-care needs. 

The past year has brought news reports of fires, bankruptcies and frighteningly unsanitary conditions in certified retirement homes. You'll want to do your due diligence before signing on the dotted line, including looking at a variety of homes, making several visits at different times of day, eating a meal or two, talking to other residents.

We've done some detective work for you and offer seven tips to researching your new retirement home.

1. Health Services: Even if you're in good health, you may want to consider a retirement community that provides an on-staff nurse, a visiting practitioner and such health-care services as medication reminders and bathing assistance. During your visits, pay particular attention to cleanliness, staff interaction with residents. Be on the lookout for odd smells, particularly a lingering smell of urine, one of the primary signs of unsanitary conditions.

2. Watch for excessive fees: It's not unusual to find you've been slammed with excessive fees as time goes by. Assess your health-care needs before you select a package or you may end up paying more than $3,000 a week for such services as around-the-clock care.

3. Check for complaints: Even an apparently well-run assisted-living facility, retirement community or nursing home can have some dirt under its fingernails. While eating meals with residents, ask if they like living there. Before signing a contract, check with the Better Business Bureau or Elder CareLocator for any problems, complaints, or legal actions filed against a facility. Another option is to contact your state health care or licensing agency. Also, ask the facility for a copy of its most recent state inspection.

4. Look at the financials: More retirement homes have gone bankrupt during the recent real-estate downturn. If you've paid hefty fees and a deposit up front, you can be marooned without a home and without cash. A more established home, rather than a prospective property, may be your best bet. Ask for copies of complete, audited annual reports and tax returns for the past several years. Some homes issue bonds and make additional information available at emma.msrb.org. Take all information you've gathered to an account, attorney or other professional well-versed in reading such statements.

5. Staffing: The cost or fees of a retirement community often are related to staffing ratios. A retirement community that charges $3,000 per month may have a resident-to-staff ratio of 8-to-1, while a community that charges $2,000 might have a ratio of 20-to-1. The extra money may be worth it to ensure better care. Also, check the staff-turnover rate. To get an even more realistic sense of what life in the community is like, visit at night when there's less staff.

6. Security: Sadly, both internal and external security is a big concern at retirement communities. Ask about 24-hour security coverage. Look for locks on all windows and doors and an alarm system. Look to see if call bells are easily accessible or if the facility has a Personal Emergency Response System (PERS) that provides residents with bracelets or necklaces that alert staff of falls or other emergencies.

7. Read the fine print: New residents often must sign a binding contract before moving in. It's worth paying $300 to $500 to have an attorney specializing in elder care review the contract. Each retirement community and contract is different, so make sure you understand  the services included in the base price and if fixed costs will increase each year. If so, the contract should state the percentage at which the increases will be calculated.

Photo by thinkpanama