I think it may be a good idea to own property toward the end of one’s life even though it may seem to be easier to rent a place and let the landlord take care of everything.
When I think about family members who owned property and those that didn’t, the ones who owned property managed to keep their property through long-term and terminal illness, with the property intact.
When an elderly person owns a property and the person becomes too old or ill to live in the property, the property can be used as a rental.
An elderly person who owns a property can cede the management of the property to a property manager who will take care of the maintenance and keep the property rented. The rent money left over after expenses can be used to help offset the cost of a long-term care facility or senior living center. Senior living centers are not cheap or free – they require an input of money. That money must come from a person’s retirement funds or pension or social security or all of it. Having a supplementary income of rent would help offset the expense.
The other option involves not owning a property, simply paying rent, and then moving to a senior facility when living on one’s own is no longer an option. This option may end up using all of a person’s cash reserves. At the end of life there may be nothing for any heirs and the individual may end up on public benefits with all of their personal assets sold by the state government in order to pay the final expenses at the senior care facility.
Although the individual who started out with property may still need to draw from their savings, pension and social security, at the end, the property would remain for the heirs, whether a charity or actual human heirs, to inherit.
