You’re planning to retire in Sequim. You’ve been planning your retirement for many years, and in the past five years you’ve spent increasingly more time on the Internet researching where to live consistent with your lifestyle preferences. You’ve been focusing in on Sequim, called One of The 10 Best Places to Retire in America in retirement magazines, Sunny Sequim, home of the Blue Hole, and The Rain Shadow.
This is a major life transition for you. In fact, there are typically four major life transitions involved, all of them stressful. I created a visual aid that expresses this reality. Why is retiring and moving so stressful? There are four major reasons, and if you click on this image, you will get an enlarged image that is easier to view.
Retire in Sequim – Stressful?
Financial planning for retirement is stressful, especially as you approach that final day called your retirement party. In these uncertain economic and political times, retirement is bound to be stressful. That is a normal human feeling. But with retirement comes selling your home, moving to Sequim, and buying a new home. These are all stressful, but necessary phases in our lives.
Retire in Sequim – Selling and Buying a Home
When it comes to selling an existing home in California or wherever you may live, that is no small challenge in this real estate recession. This too is a stressful life change, and it may be difficult. It may take time, and you may not get as much as you hoped.
Retire in Sequim – How to Reduce Stress and Enjoy the Transition
You can reduce your stress level by simply acknowledging the realities on this graphic, and by expressing to each other as husband and wife that these four life transitions are stressful, and that you will support and encourage each other in the roles that each of you have. By making careful decisions with good advice at each step, you manage stress, and increase the probability of a successful transition to Sequim, and a very happy retirement.
My job fits in the fourth step. While you are still planning to retire in Sequim, I will help you gather information and filter homes even before you arrive in Sequim. I’ll answer your questions during the months before you arrive. Then I’ll drive you around so you can get familiar with Sequim. We’ll look at the small number of homes we’ve selected in advance for you, and if and when we find the ideal home for you, I’ll help you draft an offer, negotiate the price, walk through the due diligence steps, and get to closing with the least amount of stress. As your buyer’s agent and as a 20-year real estate attorney (ret.), I know how to help you navigate this process safely.
Not to be overly dramatic, but you have one chance to get all four of these right if you expect to retire successfully. If your retirement planning is wrong, you cannot retire, and if your retirement portfolio is wrong now, your financial future will hit the skids. If you cannot get your existing home sold, or if that turns into a nightmare either because of a bad market or poor decisions, you cannot move to Sequim and buy a home. If your move doesn’t go smoothly, you’ll never arrive in Sequim. If you retire in Sequim and buy a home, but make a mistake in the negotiations and pay too much, or you make a mistake in the contract language, or you fail to do the necessary due diligence before closing, you could end up with a nightmare of litigation and stress. My point is that you have one chance to get all four of these right if you want a smooth transition to retirement. I’m not suggesting that you have to nail all four to perfection, but as my colleagues used to say when I was JAG in the Air Force, “the key to a successful military career is NOT making any major mistakes.”
You know all this, and you may have been internalizing some of this stress, even if you haven’t drawn charts like me. I’m here to help you in this process as you retire in Sequim. I hope you’ll give me that privilege as your Sequim buyer’s guide when it comes time to retire in Sequim. You can email me at chuckmarunde@gmail.com or call me anytime at 360-775-5424.
Last Updated on November 5, 2012 by Chuck Marunde
