62 Who Knew – The Retirement Rule That Quietly Un-Diversifies Clients

In a recent episode of the 62 Who Knew podcast, Cornerstone Financing co-founder Craig Corn walked through the arithmetic. For most retiree households, the home is already the single largest asset on the balance sheet. Spend the portfolio first, drawing down every non-housing asset before the home is considered, and each passing year leaves the household more concentrated in one illiquid position. The premise of thoughtful financial advice is diversification. Conventional last-resort sequencing, Corn noted, can quietly manufacture the opposite.

That observation became the starting point for a companion article expanding on the research behind it, including more than a decade of financial planning literature and a January 2026 brief from Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research on how home-sale outcomes tend to weaken as a seller ages.

The conversation also looks at what a more proactive approach can look like: evaluating housing wealth earlier in the plan, while a client still holds a diversified balance sheet and the widest range of options, rather than arriving at it last, by default, once the options have narrowed. Corn discusses how modern structures such as home equity investment agreements, CHEIFS® among them, allow housing wealth to enter the planning conversation without adding new monthly payments or interest, settling instead from the home’s value at a future settlement event such as a sale, a permanent move-out, or the homeowner’s passing. Which tool fits, if any, remains a client-by-client judgment.

Whether you advise on retirement income, long-term care, insurance, or tax strategy, this episode offers a thoughtful look at a sequencing question that deserves the same scrutiny as every other allocation decision.

Watch here: 62 Who Knew on YouTube