As eighty million Baby Boomers move into retirement, many will find that their retirement savings when combined with Social Security will fall significantly short of providing for their retirement income needs. If this is you or someone you know, what are the best financial moves to help solve the problem? Certainly one of the best strategies is to weigh your options regarding what, for most people, is your single largest asset…your home. In working with retirement clients who are considering down-sizing their home, we typically have two primary goals: Down-size out of a mortgage. From a financial perspective, there’s nothing quite as freeing as having no debt. This is particularly important for the retiree who no longer receives a paycheck. With no debt, covering the basic expenses of food, utilities, insurance and taxes is much easier. Extract home equity. Our second goal, where possible, is to purchase a less expensive home so as to take out some home equity which will allow us to add money to investments, which, in turn, will allow for more retirement cash flow.
5 strategies for downsizing your home
