It's important to get up to speed on floor plan trends when looking for a new home. It may also be useful if you are considering building or remodeling a home in an active adult community. Planning the layout of your new home is half the fun when you are making a move. Here are four considerations to make when browsing floor plans.

Moving. Everyone has to do it sooner or later. And while the end result is usually filled with excitement, the process itself is often faced with angst. But it doesn't have to be that way. There are several ways to defang the moving monster.

People aged 55 and older will account for 20 percent of this country's new home sales, according to the National Association of Home Builders. Surprised? Find out what the 55+ crowd is looking for when they buy a new home.

Whether people use a financial planning professional or choose a do-it-yourself route, the motivating factor for at least long-term financial planning is often retirement. However, retirement can mean a lot of different things to different people. For some, it means stopping work completely. For others, it may mean not having to work, but choosing to continue part- or full-time work doing something else they enjoy.

When many people first hear about "active adult communities" their first assumption is that these are places where people buy a home strictly for retirement. While it is true that many people who do live in this type of community are retired, the fact of the matter is that quite often more than half of the people who live in these developments are still working.

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