TWELVE PERCENT. THIS is a pivotal number in my financial life.
What does it refer to? Is it the average annual return on my investments? I wish. Is it the percentage of my pre-tax income that I dedicate to retirement savings? No. That number, including pension and 403(b) contributions, is closer to 25%.
Instead, that 12% is the slice of my pre-tax income reserved for housing. When picking a place to live, I’m a cheapskate.

STOCKS, BONDS, CASH—and a house owned free and clear. For many, that’s the recipe for a financially successful retirement. Our homes represent a central pillar of middle-class status. With a paid-off mortgage, we have an affordable place to spend our old age.
Yet signing up for decades of house payments has become controversial for its high opportunity cost—what you give up to pay the mortgage. Has a home mortgage, with its long, slow road to payoff,

I’M WRAPPING UP MY final big investment. Going into it, I knew it would lose money, unleash unwanted disruption and chew up time when it’s never been more precious—and yet I still went ahead.
As readers might recall, last year, Elaine and I remodeled the kitchen in our Philadelphia home. This year, we decided we’d revamp the upstairs bathroom, despite my cancer diagnosis and the forecast that I might live just 12 more months.

SIPPING MORNING coffee on the porch of my 40-year-old aluminum box in the Sonoran Desert, I’m pondering the cost of housing.
My affordable unit sits on cement piers at the end of a street within an age-restricted park, at the sparsely populated edge of Tucson. Few jobs exist nearby. Civic amenities are modest. Summer weather is challenging, with heat, thunderstorms and seasonal rattlesnakes. Still, these conditions have created a financially comfortable place for a retiree to live.

IN JANUARY, I surrendered to passionate irrationality, buying a park unit in Arizona that has become my second home.
Now I understand why, at least in the movie cliché, a man might buy house slippers for his long-suffering wife’s birthday, while giving flashy, expensive baubles to his girlfriend for no reason at all.
My single-wide “girlfriend” is tiny and fragile, the bloom off her youth. Things that improve her are easily obtained. A phone call to a friendly fellow at a store,

MY WIFE AND I purchased a 1942 bungalow when we got married in 2013. It met many of our criteria: price, location, spacious backyard, access to greenways and more. But the place also had drawbacks—including the one described below. 
The entryway to the house included a climb up seven steps to a stoop. The stoop was small, large enough for only one person to stand while opening the storm door. The only protection from the weather was an old canvas awning.

YEARS AGO, I SAW a Looney Tunes cartoon starring Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd. As always, good old Elmer was trying to kill a duck for dinner, only to be outsmarted by the much cleverer Daffy.
In this particular episode, Daffy is playing a game of catch with his duck friends outside Elmer’s house. An overthrown ball crashes through a window. Elmer comes out and says, “Who broke that glass? Someone is going to pay for that.” The ducks all bump into each other in their efforts to run away.

I HAVE LONG HELD a grudge against Los Angeles, and not just because they stole the Dodgers from Brooklyn when I was a kid. It’s a city where too much value is placed on how you look, a metric where I don’t score particularly high. By contrast, New York City—my old stomping ground—is principled more on what you know, and on that score I feel I deserve at least a gentleman’s C.
That said,

WHEN I ASKED MY brother what to bring to my newly purchased winter home in Tucson, his response was succinct: “Money. Lots. And extra credit cards.”
The voice of experience, he bought a so-called park unit five years ago before home prices soared, up 47% since early 2020 . My expenses in buying my place—and making it into what I wanted—had me selling beaten-down shares in a total bond fund to refill my cash accounts.

DURING MY INSURANCE career, I worked for a company that focused solely on certain types of businesses, or what’s known as niche underwriting. One niche was called senior living, and it insured continuing care retirement communities, or CCRCs.
These communities typically consist of apartments where retirees live alongside an adjoining nursing home. One benefit: When residents need nursing home care, it’s right next door. If they’re married, the healthy spouse can just walk to the nursing home to visit his or her beloved.

IN RICH DAD POOR DAD, author Robert Kiyosaki touts the virtues of owning real estate as a way to reach financial independence. He explains the difference between how his father handled money and invested in his education, versus his friend’s dad, who gained his wealth by investing in businesses.
There’s controversy over whether this is a true tale or just a literary device to explain how to invest in real estate.

IS A 55-PLUS community for you? Do you want to spend your later years surrounded by folks just like yourself—mostly crotchety, demanding old people?
I’m joking, of course. But am I exaggerating?

My wife Connie and I made the move from our New Jersey single-family home to a nearby 55-plus community six years ago. Like the idea of a 55-plus community? Here are some factors to consider.

First, a 55-plus community requires defining. There are several types and sizes,

MY WIFE AND I HAD intended to live in our single-family home for the rest of our lives. We remodeled several times so we could age in place, and we were confident we were all set for the future.
We knew life could change in an instant. We just didn’t think it would happen to us. My wife fell at home four years ago and suffered a traumatic brain injury. After six months in hospitals and rehab,

“IS THAT INDIA or something? Where was that picture taken, Richie?”
“You’ll never guess, Stevie. Remember 266 Washington Avenue?”
“That brown brick, 114-unit apartment building in Brooklyn that Grandpa bought 75 years ago? Mommy said he saved for the down payment with money from the kosher butcher shop he opened after he got here from Poland. But didn’t we sell it in the 1970s? It looks like the Taj Mahal now.”
“Yeah, it’s obviously been spectacularly upgraded over the years.”
“How did you get the picture?”
“Robin and I were in New York last month and went to see it.

I’M A SUCKER FOR those “10 best” lists. But are they accurate?
What if you had the best job in a poorly rated company? Would that be better than the worst job in a well-rated company? What if you move to a bad neighborhood in a well-rated city? Would that be better than an excellent neighborhood in a poorly rated community?
You get my point. Even among the worst, you can find some real gems.