Retirement living never looked so good. But if you want to buy in, follow some rules.
Retirement living never looked so good. But if you want to buy in, follow some rules.

Rocketing prices, dwindling inventory, yearlong waiting lists, buyer lotteries—no, it’s not the 2005 housing bubble. It’s the current investment boom in retirement living.

Demand for homes in “retirement” communities is on the rise. (I use the term loosely, because some of these developments are so dynamic they’re more like luxury adult summer camps.) Behind this, naturally, are the baby boomers, who account for about a quarter of the U.S. population. Born between 1946 and 1964, they started hitting retirement age a few years ago, and in the next decade, they’ll drive up the number of retiree households by about 10 million.

Though the National Association of Realtors reports that overall housing inventory is up slightly from a year ago, it doesn’t break out stats for retirement housing. Clearly, though, it’s a seller’s market. Brokers complain of shortages, and in some new communities there are even 2004-style lotteries for newly constructed homes. That’s right—when builders have more reservations than they do inventory, some put you into a lottery. No auction, no bidding war. They just pick names from a hat, and if yours isn’t one of them, you’re out.
The market is especially hot for the buyer willing to spend $1 million or more on a home. All over the country, high-end builders are cranking up their development of retirement communities. The game has attracted national players, including Chicago-based Vi, founded 25 years ago by billionaire and current U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker; Toll Brothers, the publicly traded high-end builder from Horsham, Pennsylvania; and Miami housing behemoth Lennar, which builds retirement and active-adult homes in 18 states. And there are plenty of local sharpshooters as well, like Robson Resort Communities in Arizona and the Lutgert Companies in Florida and North Carolina. (Meanwhile, international destinations like the Bahamas and Mexico, which offer tax advantages, lenient ownership restrictions and appealing prices, have become interesting to stateside retirees and developers as well.)
If you’re retiring soon, you may be wondering how to navigate this frenzied market. There’s no single strategy that works for everybody—these days, retirement can mean very different things for different people. But no matter where you fall on the spectrum, one thing’s for certain: Buying what will likely be your last home is nothing like buying your first.

Here are a dozen key ways to get it right:

Acclimate before you relocate. Weather is a key consideration when you’re buying a retirement home, especially for year-round residents. Places like Florida, Arizona and southern California are significantly more seasonal than they probably seemed during your annual one-week holiday visits. If you’re planning to make one of these vacation locales your primary residence, consider renting during the off season before you buy. Off-season deals like half-price golf might even make Florida’s humidity bearable in the summer.
Get to know the characters. Take some time to appreciate the personality of the neighborhood and your prospective neighbors. Retirement will bring more downtime than you may have been used to, and social activities are big in planned communities. Your fellow residents will be your new friends—or your new nemeses. Either way, they’ll have a bigger impact on your life than your bathroom fixtures or hardwood floors.
Check out the medical care. Many retirees endeavor to experience an active lifestyle. Does the community provide medical services? If there are no on-site health care facilities, how far must you travel? Does the community provide in-home health services, or are local physicians willing to make house calls? Remote upscale communities should be equipped with a helipad for airlift.
Factor in local tax rates. Some states are more retirement friendly than others. Income, property and estate taxes are crucial considerations when choosing a location in which to invest. Find the recipe that suits you. For instance, complying with residency requirements in Florida, Wyoming or Texas can create great income-tax advantages, but property taxes are relatively high.
Time your buy to get the best price. The best time to buy is just as the local high season is ending. In southern states, that’s usually May and June, when the weather gets steamier and the tourist stream slows to a trickle. Buyers gain negotiating power as sellers become nervous about the lull. Like the pricing but not quite ready to retire? Consider buying the home and renting to another retiree.
Study the community financials. Many retirement and second-home communities were hit hard during the downturn. While a recovery is taking place, some of these places have fared better than others. To avoid surprises, carefully review the financial records of the homeowners’ association. Search county clerks’ offices for liens and foreclosures within the community. Research community assessments through the association and the local property tax appraiser. While you’re at it, ask for the meeting minutes of the community board to learn what they’ve been concerned about lately.
Scope out the approval process. Big-city residents who live in condos and co-ops are used to being scrutinized by boards, but are you? Some retirement communities have stringent approval processes. Learn about what’s required by consulting with your broker and current residents. If you’re not crazy about the idea of your new neighbors looking at your banking records, or asking for references, you may want to consider a living situation with a less invasive approval process.
Explore “membership.” Full-service communities frequently offer specific club-membership structures. Study the requirements and options. In some communities, for instance, the purchase of an ownership stake known as an “equity membership” is mandatory. This investment may run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, yet its appreciation and resale value can be uncertain. Many communities also charge annual dues and a food and beverage minimum. The equity members are responsible for maintaining the club at any cost. During the downturn, many clubs suffered as fewer members were able to pay their shares.
Scrutinize the activity calendar. You may not have thought this much about games since your school days. But again, you’re about to have a lot more time on your hands. So spend some time figuring out if the community you’re buying into provides activities you take seriously. In most cases, there are the country club staples—golf, tennis, swimming. But some of the most popular activities for retirees these days may sound foreign to you. Pickleball, for example, is played with paddles on what looks like a badminton court, and has become a craze for seniors who used to play tennis. Bocce, the Italian lawn-bowling game, is also hot, primarily because it can be played with a drink in one hand.
Research the restrictions. Rental and resale restrictions are common in gated communities and condominiums. Still, you may be startled by what some retirement communities disallow. Pets are just the tip of the iceberg. Some places ban outdoor grilling and cigar smoke. Some won’t let you park a car in your driveway or warn burglars that your home is equipped with a security alarm system. You may not even be allowed to talk on your balcony after dark. And a long list of rules may also indicate a high level of board politics. If you decide to buy in, be prepared to get involved. Condo and co-op dwellers know well that it’s often just one or two people on a board who create 95 percent of the drama.
Consider the caretakers. Who’s going to take care of your home when you’re out of town, ill, or just don’t feel like it? Some communities offer more maintenance, repair and security services than others. Predictably, well-staffed condos are easier to maintain than individual homes. However, caretaker and home-watch services are common offerings in high-end communities. Some visit 200 to 300 homes per month and charge $50-$100 to open and close the house and make sure your lights, air conditioning and pool pump are working.
Don’t forget the big city. Homes in walkable cities like New York, Boston and San Francisco can be expensive, but provide many built-in advantages for retirees, including health care services, mass transit and a wealth of activities and social opportunities. It’s not surprising that many people of means move from suburbs back to these cities as empty nesters or retirees. If a retirement community in a place like Naples or Scottsdale just isn’t

A new super-tall tower will rise along midtown’s so-called Billionaires’ Row now that the project’s developers have secured a $725 million construction loan for the $1 billion spire.

A partnership between JDS Development and Property Markets Group has received financing from AIG and Apollo Global Management to build 111 W. 57th St., a 1,438-foot-tall tower that will be the tallest residential building in the Western Hemisphere when it is completed in 2018.

AIG is the senior lender, while Apollo is providing a mezzanine loan. The size of each loan could not be determined, but construction loans are generally as high as about 60% of a project’s value, which would put AIG’s debt at about $600 million and Apollo’s mezzanine loan at about $125 million.

Neither JDS nor PMG would comment on the deal.

The developers began work on the spire last year, pouring its foundation and renovating an existing building that it is preserving on the site and incorporating into the new tower. The project is often informally referred to as the Steinway Tower because the ground floor of that existing property has a landmarked interior that was the former showroom for the piano maker Steinway & Sons. That space, which features an ornate domed ceiling and marble columns, will serve as part of the retail space in the new tower.

Now that the loan has been secured, the developers will begin erecting the SHoP Architect-designed 111 W. 57th St. in the coming weeks. The building will be a mere 60 feet wide, making it dramatically slender even among a new crop of pencil-thin condo spires. The exterior of the tower will feature a distinct stepped spire resembling a tilted deck of cards.

The city’s ultra-high-end residential market has been heating up. In recent weeks, The Real Deal reported that a Middle Eastern buyer was in talks to purchase the upper portion of 220 Central Park South, a new condo tower being built by Vornado Realty Trust just a few blocks from 111 W. 57th St., for a record $250 million.

The strong sales and eye-popping sums have, at least for the time being, allayed concerns in recent months over a glut of multimillion-dollar apartments in the coming years and whether there will be enough buyers for the influx of inventory. A total of about 13,000 new condo apartments will be built through the end of 2016, most of which will be priced at least $3,000 per square foot, according to Jonathan Miller, president and CEO of real estate appraisal firm Miller Samuel.

“To me, the question that will determine the success of these projects now is how long it will take for buyers to absorb all of these high-priced apartments,” Mr. Miller said. “Billionaires’ Row is really a whole new market, it’s not an extension of anything we’ve ever had before.”

JDS and PMG’s loan expires in four years, giving the developers time to sell the 60-unit 111 W. 57th St. Sales for the tower are expected to begin in the fall.

The developers have a good track record when it comes to selling high-end apartments. They converted a former Verizon-owned structure in Chelsea into a luxury building, known as Walker Tower, that became one of the city’s best-selling residential projects in recent years. Separately, JDS recently closed on a $390 million construction loan for a pair of rental towers it is building at 626 First Ave.

Alfa Development is in contract to buy a four-building Gramercy Park development site from Kevin Maloney’s Property Markets Group and Kasra Sanandaji’s Apex Investments for $69.6 million, The Real Deal has learned. Alfa, a Chelsea-based development firm led by Michael Namer, will likely build condominiums on the site, said M.L. Perlman, vice president of development and marketing. The existing properties, along with additional air rights, collectively offer more than 90,000 buildable square feet — and allow for a building as tall as 20 stories.

PMG and Apex began assembling the low-rise, mixed-use properties last year, paying $9.5 million for 253-255 Third Avenue and $7.6 million for 261 Third Avenue in two separate deals, according to property records. Then, just last month, they paid $15.6 million for a pair of buildings at 257 Third Avenue and 259 Third Avenue, near East 21st Street. The four properties contain residential rental units as well as significant retail space. PMG and Apex intended to construct an affordable housing building on the site, but are now selling all four properties in a deal slated to close by August 1. “Currently, PMG has a number of properties under construction including 111 West 57th Street and 10 Sullivan, two additional sites breaking ground this year and several in the planning stage,” Maloney said in a statement to TRD. We are also very busy in Miami and Chicago, so I thought it prudent to focus on these and sell the site at 21st Street and Third Avenue.” Cushman & Wakefield’s Bob Knakal and Jonathan Hageman, who represented the sellers, declined to comment.

Alfa also developed Chelsea Green, a 20-story, 51-unit condo building along 21st Street in Chelsea. “We’re excited to participate in the strong real estate market in the area, just steps away from Gramercy Park,” Perlman said. Elsewhere in the neighborhood, Akelius Real Estate Management picked up a 17-story rental building at 301 East 21st Street for $167.5 million in May, as TRD reported.

Alex Rocco as Moe Greene in “The Godfather.” The actor emerged from the film with a collection of signature lines. CreditParamount Pictures

( editors note: although not our usual inclusions in our site, Alex Rocco was a favorite of some of our principals and we wanted to observe his passing.  Goodbye Alex, Rest in Peace)

Alex Rocco, the gravelly-voiced actor whose gallery of memorable characters included Moe Greene, the cocky, bespectacled Las Vegas casino owner who made the mistake of talking back to Michael Corleone in “The Godfather,” died on Saturday at his home in the Studio City neighborhood of Los Angeles. He was 79.

The cause was cancer, his manager, Susan Zachary, said.

Mr. Rocco had fairly limited screen time in “The Godfather” (1972), but he emerged from that film with a collection of signature lines, including “You don’t buy me out. I buy you out” and “Do you know who I am?” (both spoken to the Godfather-in-waiting, played by Al Pacino), and a Hollywood reputation for stealing scenes with little more than a Boston attitude and his eyebrows.

In 1990 he won an Emmy Award for his role as a larger-than-life old-school talent agent in the well-reviewed but short-lived Jon Cryer sitcom “The Famous Teddy Z.”

Mr. Rocco’s other noteworthy films included “The Friends of Eddie Coyle” (1973), with Robert Mitchum; “Freebie and the Bean” (1974), one of several projects he did with Alan Arkin; Tom Hanks’s “That Thing You Do!” (1996), as a fast-talking music executive; “The Wedding Planner” (2001), as Jennifer Lopez’s old-fashioned father; and “A Bug’s Life” (1998), as the voice of the grumpy grain-counting ant Thorny. (He once said of his voice work, which also included the role of a cynical cartoon producer on “The Simpsons,” “It’s like stealing money.”)

“It always seems like if I’m not killing somebody, violently, I’m playing somebody’s dad,” Mr. Rocco said in an interview with The A.V. Club in 2012. In the same interview, he talked about meeting with the director Francis Ford Coppola about the role in “The Godfather.”

He recalled saying: “I’m Italian. I wouldn’t know how to play a Jew.” Mr. Coppola, he recalled, suggested hand gestures that could differentiate the two ethnic groups. “Greatest piece of direction I ever got,” Mr. Rocco said.

Alexander Federico Petricone Jr. was a Leap Year baby, born in Cambridge, Mass., on Feb. 29, 1936, to Alexander Sr. and the former Mary Di Biase. He often told journalists that he worked in his youth for gangsters in the Winter Hill neighborhood of nearby Somerville, but an early stay at the Middlesex House of Correction in Billerica, Mass., turned him against a life of crime.

He never wanted to sacrifice his privacy again, he said. So he tossed a coin to decide whether to start a new life in Miami or Los Angeles. Los Angeles won.

Mr. Rocco moved to Southern California in the early 1960s and worked as a bartender while studying acting with Leonard Nimoy. His first film role was in “Motorpsycho!” (1965), a Russ Meyer special in which he played a biker-gang rapist. Between that movie and his role in “The Godfather,” he was typecast quickly in films including “The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre,” “The Boston Strangler,” “Wild Riders” and “Blood Mania.”

He was most recently seen in “Scammerhead,” a noirish comedy, but two films he made are awaiting release now. In “Silver Skies,” a comic drama about eccentric retirees, he plays a nice guy, nostalgic for his days as a guard at Paramount. In “The Other,” a thriller, he’s the owner of an estate where dark, demonic things seem to happen.

Mr. Rocco married Sandie Elaine Garrett in 1966, and they had three children. She died in 2002. He married the actress Shannon Wilcox in 2005. She survives him, as do a son, Lucien; a daughter, Jennifer Rocco; a stepson, Sean Doyle; a stepdaughter, the actress Kelli Williams; a sister, Vivian De Simone; and four grandchildren. Another son, the director Marc Rocco, died in 2009.

Mr. Rocco told interviewers that he enjoyed playing gangsters, and that he used his “street energy” in show business.

 “I don’t mean you have to be overbearing, but you have to stay on top of things — read the trades, know what’s going on in the town,” he told the website comicbookmovie.com in 2011. “I call it ‘dare to be stupid.’ The worst thing they can say is, ‘We got nothing for you.’ So I’ve hustled a lot.”

July 27, 2015 09:09AM

Gale Brewer and Andrew Berman

While ever-taller, ever-faster new development in New York City seems to be par for the course these days, a crop of powerful anti-development voices works behind the scenes to slow things down. The city’s biggest development foes include Michael Gruen, the attorney who led the charge to stop the Willets West shopping mall based on the argument that it was to be built on public parkland, according to Crain’s. Ray Sloane, president of the Cobble Hill Association in Brooklyn, is a leader in the fight against the redevelopment of Long Island College Hospital, and once proposed bottling Gowanus Canal water for officials who wanted to build housing along its polluted shores. Andrew Berman, leader of the Greenwich Village Historic Preservation Society, championed the opposition to NYU’s expansion in the neighborhood, but lost his court battle this month. And on the government side, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer is a natural ally of the preservation movement. At a time when Mayor Bill de Blasio’s top priorities include building vast numbers of affordable housing units and upzoning neighborhoods to allow taller towers, preservation is a particularly hot topic. [Crain’s] — Tess Hofmann –

July 24, 2015 12:05PM
By Rey Mashayekhi

The city’s bid to crackdown on shell companies used to purchase luxury properties hasn’t lifted the “veil of secrecy” yet – a 78th-floor Time Warner Center penthouse sold for $51 million late last month to an unnamed buyer, according to property records filed with the city Friday.

Columbus Family LLC is listed as the purchaser the five-bedroom, 8,300-square-foot apartment at 25 Columbus Circle. Elizabeth Sample and Brenda Powers of Sotheby’s International Realty listed the penthouse for $75 million in 2013, with Brown Harris Stevens dropping the price to $68 million a year later.

The seller, Southerndown Inc., had until recently also been shrouded in mystery. The New York Times, in its far-reaching “Towers of Secrets” series in February, reported that Russian billionaire Andrey Vavilov set up the shell company to purchase the penthouse from Austrian-born investor Gerhard Andlinger for $37.5 million in 2009. Andlinger also sold the penthouse well below its original asking price of $65 million in 2008.

Legal representatives for both the buyer and seller could not be reached for comment.

New disclosure requirements by the city could make the anonymous purchase of luxury properties more difficult, by requiring the names of shell company members to be released to the city.