Genworth, a long-term care insurance specialist, reviewed the cost of assisted living care and determined the median price of assisted living communities in each state. According to their findings, the national average yearly cost of assisted living services in America will be $54,000 in 2021, which works out to $4,500 on average monthly or $148 daily.
Finding out how much it may and does cost usually comes as a shock. Particularly affected are those without adequate long-term care insurance and those whose families must cover all, or a significant portion of the expense of assisted living community care themselves.
Many individuals and their families need an assisted living community in Houston after experiencing a health crisis such as a stroke, a catastrophic fall, or an Alzheimer’s diagnosis, all of which may happen without warning.
Inevitably, one’s bank account will become lighter when they have to pay for medical treatment and the care of a loved one. It’s more involved than just choosing a place and giving your consent to receive calls. In this context, high-quality assisted living care means more than just keeping your loved one alive; it also includes making sure they are well-cared-for, socially active, stimulated, engaged, and comfortable by a team of professionals like support staff, caregivers, skilled nursing professionals, contract workers, administrators, security guards, and chefs.
Why Are Assisted Living Costs In Houston So Expensive?
The average monthly cost of assisted living is $4,500, or a daily average cost of $148. The cost of living here covers a private room or a semi-private room, bathroom, and closet but also your meals, use of the shared living spaces, and participation in various wellness and social events planned by the staff. Everything from preparing and serving meals to doing the laundry is taken care of for you.
When considering costs, remember that those who offer the best assisted living facilities in Houston often provide 24-hour care for residents. This includes help with activities of daily living, including bathing, eating, getting dressed, and using the restroom whenever you need or want. You’ll also have access to medical services, including assisted living options for therapy such as speech, occupational, or physical, nutritional guidance, and medication management.
The team keeps tabs on how you’re doing on a daily basis, and if they see any signs of illness, they’ll let your physicians and loved ones know right away. Your loved one will get the individualized level of care they need in a warm and welcoming setting, whether they require long-term assisted living and memory care due to Dementia or short-term rehabilitation after a fall.
How To Pay For Assisted Living In Houston
Refinance Home
John and Nancy have a mortgage with a fixed rate for 30 years. Since getting their loan 20 years ago, they have paid 7% annually in interest.
Tragically, John had a stroke. Nancy contacts their bank to check if they may refinance their current mortgage to a more favorable interest rate. In this case, every savings counts.
If approved, John and Nancy could reduce their monthly mortgage payment by locking in a new lower rate for the next ten years. Nonetheless, the current market conditions may make this a challenge. The interest rates available now are sky-high. Yet if interest rates were to decline in the future, they could be able to refinance once again to reduce their payments further.
For children, take caution when refinancing your parent’s home in their name, especially if they have no regular income. In theory, you could refinance their mortgage and take out some cash if they transferred half of the property to you as a joint tenant with survivorship rights, but the new monthly payment would be much higher in practice. Have a chat with the lender to verify this.
File For Reverse Mortgage
Reverse mortgages allow Houston seniors over 62 to borrow money against the value of their property. The money from the bank might come in the form of a flat amount, regular monthly payments, or a revolving line of credit.
Usually, an elderly couple takes out a loan, and they both sign the paperwork, and the debt isn’t due until the last borrower dies or moves out. The loan is often not repaid in installments. However, the lender gets repaid in full, plus interest, upon selling the property.
Apply For Veteran Affairs Benefits
Those who qualify for the Veterans Aid and Attendance Benefit get monetary assistance to cover a licensed assisted living facility or home care. Aid and Attendance is often known as VA Eldercare Benefit, or VA Assisted Living Benefit. This pension scheme helps thousands of families located in Houston to pay for assisted living by providing benefits for veterans. You will get a higher monthly payout than the standard pension if you receive Aid and Attendance benefits.
Not only do many veterans and their loved ones not know about the Aid and Attendance pension, but even those aware of it often fail to consider it a possible source of financial support for a veteran who is still living independently but has a sick spouse. There is a way for the veteran to qualify, especially if their spouse’s medical bills consume the couple’s entire monthly income.
File With Insurance
Individuals needing assisted living and long-term senior care often shoulder the financial burden of funding it. Some individuals choose to protect their finances by purchasing insurance to cover costly long-term care.
However, help with assisted living costs may come from sources other than yourself. The Medicaid program is a popular option. Medicaid provides health care coverage for low-income families and individuals.
It is a state-run public health insurance program and the primary federal aid program for assisted living and other forms of long-term care.
Certain forms of life insurance may also double as long-term care insurance, so if your loved one has one, cashing it out might be an excellent way to help pay for assisted living in Texas.
Ways To Recoup Costs Of Assisted Living In TX
Think about finding the best cash buyer in the Houston area if you need a large amount of money to cover immediate medical expenses or the cost of assisted living. Although it may be painful, selling the family home of the individual entering assisted living to a cash buyer like Assemble Houston might be best. For another, it gets rid of the mortgage and the associated expenditures and hassles of house maintenance.
It also relieves family members of the responsibility of utility payments, tenant management, and upkeep. Family members who live far away often cannot assist with day-to-day tasks like these, burdening a single family member.
22.3/22
How To Value A Vacant Lot
A little parcel of land that’s been in your family for generations may have suddenly become yours. Not only do you not yet feel motivated to relocate where the property is situated, but you have yet to make concrete plans for it.
Like any other real estate investment, the choice to acquire a vacant property is substantial and nuanced. To begin, there are several benefits to being a property owner. With a house, you generally want to live there; with land, you want and have more options, like investing in it, setting up a commercial property, or even turning it into residential land.
On the other hand, several complications arise with owning a vacant lot compared to purchasing a home. You may not even be allowed to construct a home on an empty lot because it may not be zoned for residential use. You might consider selling it if you understand the process better or have some inkling of the land’s worth.
There’s Value In Land Valuation Or Vacant Land Appraisal
Property due diligence is incomplete without an accurate lot appraisal. If you want to know how much your land is worth, get an appraisal to get a sense of the property’s fair market value.
Appraising land, sometimes called land valuation, property valuation, or real estate appraisal, is used to estimate the value of the property. The land is appraised in the same way as a house is, with the exception that, in this instance, the appraiser is looking for factors that make a property valuable such as proximity to developed areas, ease of access to utilities, and the presence of favorable terrain.
The ease of getting in and out of your neighborhood is a major consideration for real estate agents when estimating the value of a piece of land. If the property is hard to get to, it doesn’t matter how desirable the lot might be in other circumstances. In the end, how valuable the land depends on how easy it is to get there. Lenders may also hesitate to provide financing for properties only accessible through private roads if no maintenance agreement exists.
Some property types are more valuable than others; hence topography plays a role in land valuations. Since land too wet to be a buildable lot is not the best place for a shopping mall, for example, you might preserve it as natural hunting grounds.
Professional appraisers will go to where the land is situated to examine its topography and provide an opinion on how much of an influence it has on the property’s worth. A land appraisal report may also provide information on the constraints posed by the topography of a particular area.
You may be limited in how you put your property to use or how you maintain it if it has an unusual form or a small footprint. Septic tank installations, for instance, generally need larger lots and the use of heavy machinery to carve a path through the yard. The subject property may be too irregular in form or too narrow to accommodate such activities.
A property’s worth also takes into account the quality of the area around it. The value of your land might drop if the local current market is experiencing a decline.
Equally telling of the market’s future is what’s happening with nearby vacant lots. It is common for whole communities to transform from agricultural land to suburban neighborhoods. An appraiser can discuss the impact these alterations have on the value of the land.
Compare Land Sales
Hiring a reputable, licensed real estate agent specializing in selling land or property may be worth something, but you can also peruse internet listings of similar properties in the area. For rough estimates, this is quite useful. A professional opinion is necessary if you need more precise information or if its unique features possibly increase the value of the property.
However, keep in mind the difficulty of conducting comparables. A distant acre of land may have few comparables on the market you can use to determine its worth. A sales comparison approach by an expert appraiser is necessary for this situation.
It can take time to track down comparable sales figures. Appraisers sometimes compile and maintain databases, including data on comps they may be prepared to provide to interested parties. Real estate transactions are usually recorded with the county registrar of deeds, although local assessors may also be able to provide helpful information. Commercial databases also sell similar data in major cities.
You may also deduce value from Zillow listings for vacant lots. However, listings that have yet to sell are often advertised at higher prices than those at which they ultimately sell for. Having many comparable properties on the real estate market should also be taken into account when assigning a value to a property.
Finding enough sales to use as comps to get an accurate market view is essential. One or two sales may be all that’s available, yet such a limited sample size might lead to inaccurate conclusions. Three to five sales are the best range.
Once you have compiled the sales comps, you should personally visit the property to get a sense of the location and surrounding area. You may also interview a fellow seller or real estate attorney acquainted with similar transactions to help with the process.
Learn About The Property’s Topography Etc.
Knowing the ins and outs of your property is essential to valuing it.
- Each county has its own zoning laws, yet all property is affected by zoning regulations and land use. As a general rule, zoning and land use regulations specify what may and cannot be built on a land parcel. Zoning is one of many factors determining a property’s worth, and it may save you from developing a valuable plot of land in the wrong location.
- An inaccessible parcel of raw land may be the result of encumbrances and easements. There may be an easement on the land for flowage, drainage, sewage and water facilities, pedestrian access, and utilities. One of your need-to-knows is how exactly the easement increases the value of your property or make it worth less.
- Before deciding to own a land in a subdivision, it is vital to learn about any existing property limitations. Assume that a homeowners’ association controls the area you’re considering if the empty property is located in an established neighborhood. Membership in a homeowners’ association often entails payment of dues and the adoption of a code of conduct and standards of appearance for the neighborhood.
- One of the most critical aspects of real estate is its location. A property’s location is a major factor in whether or not you can develop the land. The ideal places to stay suit the needs of those staying there. If you’re keen to shoulder the cost of building a house and other structures on the site, for instance, its proximity to services like shops, grocery stores, and workplaces is important. On the other hand, a remote location may be less crucial if the property is meant for agricultural use.
- The value of vacant land tends to rise when it has attractive features like scenic vistas, waterfalls, lakes, and other natural attractions that increase its desirability. Unless, of course, such characteristics restrict the land’s practical use. For instance, if a sizable stream runs straight down the middle of the property, blocking off access to a sizable portion of it, the presence of the stream itself may detract from the land’s value. Additionally, the surrounding terrain and plants may or may not provide a habitat for various animal species.
- The land value may be affected by factors like the availability of utilities and sewage connections, which affect future land development and hence the property’s potential value. Any prospective developer would have to install electricity, water, and sewage utilities if they purchased the site without them. It will be challenging to bring in public services if there are no sewer and utility connections, so you may need to depend on other solutions. Utilities are costly and time-consuming to deliver to undeveloped terrain.
- It is also crucial to learn about natural disasters like floods, the frequency with which they occur, and the potential damage they can do to your property. These things influence the property’s overall value since they affect its potential and usefulness.
Hire A Realtor And Real Estate Appraiser To Know Your Land Value
Work with experts. A realtor familiar with the region and who has sold lots in the past will have a good idea of what potential buyers want and are willing to pay for. In addition, they will be aware of the sale prices at which comparable properties have recently changed hands. Consider the site carefully and think about what the property would be like when you build on it or what those looking for land may use the area for.
Of course, hiring a professional appraiser is the best way to determine the value of a vacant lot. They will talk to in-the-know locals to determine the highest and best use of the property. Without knowing the true market value of vacant lands, vacant lot appraisals are the most accurate estimates possible.
This number will tell the banks if it’s worth much to risk on you. But expert appraisers have costs. Some say hiring an appraiser is only cost-effective if a sale or land loan is imminent.
Further, it would be best if you had different appraisers for the various uses of unoccupied property. Estimating land in Houston’s suburbs may be beyond the expertise of an appraiser specializing in valuing land in the Texas countryside.