Updated August 3, 2026. Quick answer: compare these three on total cost over the years you expect to live, not on monthly outlay, because they front-load and back-load differently. Staying home looks cheapest until care is needed. A CCRC looks most expensive until care is needed. Assisted living sits between and moves with your acuity.
The three shapes
| Up front | Monthly, while well | When care is needed | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stay home | Nothing, or the cost of adapting the house | Existing housing costs | Rises steeply — $35 an hour for a non-medical caregiver, about $80,080 a year at 44 hours a week |
| Assisted living | Usually a community fee, not six figures | About $6,200 a month, 2025 median | Rises with acuity; a move to skilled nursing is a new contract |
| CCRC | A six-figure entrance fee | A monthly fee on top | Depends entirely on contract type — that is what you prepaid for |
The comparison people actually get wrong
Staying home is usually compared on housing cost against a community’s monthly fee, and on that basis home wins easily. But the community fee bundles food, utilities, maintenance, transport and social contact, and the home figure usually excludes all of them plus the care.
The honest version is to price the same bundle. Take your current annual housing cost including tax, insurance, utilities and maintenance, add what you would spend on food and transport, then add the care. At even 20 hours a week of paid help, home care alone approaches the median assisted-living fee before any of the rest.
What tips each way
- Staying home wins on autonomy and on cost while you are well, and it is the only option where the asset stays yours. It fails when care needs are round-the-clock or when isolation becomes the actual health problem.
- Assisted living is the flexible middle: no large sunk cost, and you can leave. It offers no protection against the cost of the level above it.
- A CCRC is the only one that can cap your care-cost risk — and only if the contract does that. Type A does; Type C does not.
The three numbers to get before deciding
- Your real current cost of staying put, including the maintenance you have been deferring.
- Local prices, not medians. Three providers where you live. The national picture is a shape.
- What happens to the entrance fee if you leave, die, or the operator fails. That is not the simple question it looks like.
What does not change either way
Medicare does not pay for long-term care in any of the three. Neither does Medigap. That is true of the house, the apartment and the community alike — what Medicare does and does not cover.
And staying put has its own money levers worth checking first: senior property-tax relief in your state, and if you sell, how the gain is taxed.
This is a six-figure decision with a long tail.
The three paths diverge most in the years you cannot forecast, which is exactly when the arithmetic stops being arithmetic. If you want a second opinion on the cash-flow side before committing an entrance fee, this is a reasonable place to get one.
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General information drawn from IRS, Medicare, HUD and state statute and regulation, not legal, tax or financial advice. Continuing-care law is state law and differs materially between states; every figure here is year-labelled and every source named so you can check it against your own contract. Read your own signed agreement before relying on any general description, including this one.