In the final third of our lives, things tend to get a little more complex than most of us would give ourselves credit for. In the first 2 thirds, we have enthusiasm, energy and good health to face anything, regardless of how tough it might be.

However, as we get older, this starts to change. And as a result, choosing the right retirement home for you can become a bit of a challenge.

There are a couple of different stages to retirement, and it’s not always clear which ones will be easy and which ones you’ll have to plan for carefully. If you’ve had kids, you’ll go from looking after a bustling household to care-taking a home that’s too big for you, all the while trying to decide if it’s worth keeping in case grandchildren are born.

If you make it through this stage in your life, the next stage of your retirement you’ll have to contend with is potentially living through your retirement without a partner. Retirement can open up a whole new world, whether that be a new lease of life or deciding to quietly settle into old age. Either you or your partner could get seriously ill and sadly, it’s likely that one of you is going to die before the other.

It’s difficult to predict these outcomes, but your home is going to become an integral aspect of your support and self-care if it happens to you.

In each of these parts of your retirement, you’re going to have wildly different needs, so you need to choose a retirement home that will facilitate your transition from empty nesters to retirees and elderly. Even if you settle on a large family home to keep use of functional spaces, upgrading your property from a large one to a modern equivalent may make it easier to take care of and reduce the amount of maintenance you have to handle.

If your nest is empty, one of the best choices you can make is to let your family home go and turn a new chapter of your family’s life. After years of maintaining a busy schedule, running a home and working, retirement presents you with a great opportunity to scale back a little and settle into a life that requires less constant work. As a result, downsizing to a home that can facilitate this should be your first priority.

Adding a couple of technological conveniences, such as smart equipment and coffee machines, can also give your life that extra dose of quality.

If you’ve been in good health throughout the majority of your life, it’s usually safe to assume that you can enjoy 10 years before health problems start to kick in and impact your daily activities. However, your physical capacity can change quickly so you should try to pick a property that can be quickly adapted to support your current and changing condition.

Choosing a retirement home is a task that’s going to present each of us with different and unique challenges. If you can’t be certain that your home will be the core part of your family and you’re going to need a large property for the foreseeable future, downsizing to a smaller, more modern and technologically-equipped home could be the best option for you.