I have worked with disabled (wheelchair) clients and homebuilders who specialize in adapting homes to meet the needs of disabled clients. I find it frustrating, as perhaps many of you have, in locating already adapted housing that may come onto the market. My local MLS simply defines these properties, if agents remember to fill out the forms properly, as either "no interior steps" or "physically challenged" with no further definitions or subsets of disability modifications provided. No interior steps doesn't explain how someone in a wheelchair enters something other than a zero grade threshhold.
Worst, perhaps, is the loss of that incrementally more valuable mobility adapted inventory when not marketed to disabled home buyers, as the home is likely to be remodelled back to conventional configuration (and the cost of restoration likely being deducted from the selling price) For the disabled Buyer, the remodelling of the conventional home to meet specialized purposes can entail 6 to 12 months and $20K to $40K in expense.
Has anyone had experience putting together a registry of specially adapted homes, or has any ideas along these lines? Rentals have figured out this niche sub-market, but home resales seems to lack a useful resource. With baby boomers aging, with accidents, and diasabled veterans returning from war, it seems more than time to find a way to find these Buyers suitably modified housing, and give our disabled Sellers an enhanced marketing tool to recature the cost of these valuable adaptations and modifications.
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