Hi. Part of the problem is that there seems to be very little middle ground. You either have to sink substantial sums into a "retirement" living property, or rent through a Housing Association, with the latter often going to current social housing tenants.
You need to get it right. Property can be a lumpy investment, and unpopular/restrictive retirement properties can be very difficult to sell. The worst of all worlds is to be paying care home fees plus hefty service charges on an empty retirement property.
I ended up having to make a decision quickly and without much knowledge of where my mother stood dementia wise. She had always been fiercely independent, but following a fall, was pretty confused. She had liked the look of a new Churchill Retirement Living Development, but the person marketing the property could not answer my questions with any clarity. They in fact never called back so I was left not knowing whether the age restrictions would preclude a 24 hour carer living there, should one be needed.
In the event various professionals gently steered me away and towards somewhere with a 24 hour warden service, a restaurant, laundry service, reception and more. The service charge is closer to £500pcm but allows for huge savings compared with the cost of an external carer coming in or a care home fees. My choice was confirmed by the priest, who knew the development well, and more randomly by a boiler engineer with several customers in the building. Even so I found it quite scarey making such a big decision for someone else, in an area I did not know and where I knew so little about my mothers needs and how they could be met.
My advice would be to ask everyone you can, and think ahead to what might be needed five years hence. You presumably want a move that will both allow a good level of independent living for as long as possible and thus delay any eventual move to a care home till absolutely necessary.
In terms of saleability one way of checking is to search RightMove for your area, looking for retirement properties only. In my mothers area, some are astonishingly cheap - half the price of standard two bedroom flats. Others sell at a premium. Tellingly I then ranked properties by "most" recent. The four listings that appeared to have been on the market longest all turned out to be McCarthy and Stone.
The link you were looking for was www.mumsnet.com/Talk/elderly_parents/1877450-Retirement-living-Downsizing
I posted on that as well. Do look closely at the management company. A quick Google should show up a poor reputation.
There was a Channel 4 Dispatches programme last year "Undercover Retirement Home" I did not see it and don't know if you still can, but I know someone who worked on it and she said it was pretty shocking.