Seattle

True story; I’m an old skier.  And what does that have to do with the NAHBR?  And what does any of that have to do with deciding whether to stay in your home as you age, or sell it and move in with a group of people you hardly know?

Tens years or so ago I met a man who was also an old skier.  We’d both spent some of our youth living in the Rocky Mountains and devoting our time testing our balance while in frictionless motion sliding down steep hillsides covered in snow.  We were working together now on the renovation of a commercial building on the shores of Lake Union.  Mike was the project manager representing the general contractor.  Mike travels in a wheelchair.  I have this memory of him negotiating over a debris covered jobsite that’s probably more romance than reality.  His people knew better than to impede the progress of his chair.  His was the only chair that I saw on a jobsite in thirty five years of my experience in that industry.  He makes an impact.

Imagine my surprise today when I saw his name as a speaker at our weekly CBBain real estate forum.  I was fascinated to see the article that was written about him on the NAHBR website: Selling Universal and Green Remodels.

The forum is entitled “Designing for Life”.  You’ll see from Mike’s website at Stewardship Remodeling that he believes that home design should be for life and that if it is done correctly, it should allow us to live out our lives there.  When you understand this approach you can see that one of the paths that it leads to our interest in the impact of aging on real estate.

Is it fair to ask an elder to leave the home that they’ve grown to love?  Is there a way to recognize our own concerns for the safety of our elders and the possibilities that may exist for them staying home?