House for Mom
 

Mom is 74 and in good shape. Due to a family situation she now needs a new place to live. She can handle a modest mortgage with some cash infusion from my sister and me, or one of us can buy the place and mom can pay us rent to cover the mortgage payment. She found a few places outside Denver for $100-120K. Owning a rental property doesn't help me much tax-wise and I would rather not be a landlord again, even for mom! But overall considering her age, what is the best way to go?

REMEMBER man, SHE is your MOTHER not a renter. Give her the BEST place to live that you and your Sister can afford. REMEMBER you only have ONE MOTHER, SHE deserves the BEST that you can give. :mad:

If you can find something around Denver for $120k buy it.

Put your only MOTHER in the best accommodations you can afford.

Is she paying you? :)

I know all that but practicality has to come into play here too. We'll get her into a good place. The question is how to arrange ownership.

No she's not. My own biological mother is a POS, but my real mother/ aunt was the greatest woman that ever lived. She raised 23 foster children and myself. She was unable to have children herself. She was voted the mother of the year in Ohio in the 50's. All I'm saying is that you shouldn't worry about ownership in this case, you should do what's best for your Only MOTHER.

I think she hijacked the 'Man's account! :D

being 74 years old, i'd look into a retirement complex. my sister and i went through this when dad died.

we did the pros and cons of her living by herself in a house, and the cons outweighed the pros by a very large margin.

HEY!!! someone has hijacked my account. :cool:

That's a good idea. I guess it depends what it means when you say she's in "Good shape."

My Mom moved into a community that is deed restricted to over 55. There's a pool, community room, all kinds of stuff for seniors only. Maybe you can find someplace like that?

Danny

The only senior communities she found are high rises, and she wants a normal townhouse/condo. She is youthful for her age but we all realize that could change at any time, but for now mom is very resolute about what is acceptable and what is not. Thats also why she won't rent from an outsider for fear that she will be booted out or the rent going way up. So my question boils down to who should be on the deed, single or joint ownership?

We were faced with a similar situation when her Ma got sick and Ed got laid off. Made far more sense to get them close to us, so Darling Wife could help out daily without a 130 mile round trip to Baltimore.

We opted for buying a place (went in with Darling Wife's Twin Brother). Title is in our three names, Ma and Ed were left off for two reasons: a) Ma would have lost her medical assistance if she had any assets, and b) simplicity if Ma & Ed (or now Ed, since Ma passed on) opted to move on or when they'd both died.

Ed is paying rent that covers the mortgage - if he's still around when his unemployment runs out, guess we'll figure out how to cross that bridge if/when we get to it. Market reality is that we could rent it for considerably more than the mortgage, so moving Ed in with us and renting at market rate to someone else is a possible solution.

I think we are going to do the same arrangement. There aren't all that many options I guess.

I would keep her name off the deed. This way if she needs to go into assisted living in the future, they can't attach her house because she won't own it.

You really don't want anything in your name as you get older, it should be in your kids names or a trust.

Done! Although the trust currently owns a whole lotta nothing! :o

Having a kid with special needs pretty much necessitated setting up the trust now, otherwise an insanely low amount of assets would disqualify him from any services he might qualify for (which he hopefully wouldn't need anyway).