NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Many of my peers in their early 40s think that come retirement time they'll cash out of their expensive California homes with a big profit and move to lower-cost locales.

I'm concerned that this plan won't work because the baby boomers ahead of us will have already sold their high-price homes and, in the process, bid up prices in low-cost markets and depressed values in the high-cost areas they're leaving. Is this a legitimate concern?

-- Dave Cowelens, San Diego, Calif.

With so many things to worry about when it comes to retirement planning -- savings, wise investing, Social Security fears -- I wouldn't lose too much sleep over older baby boomers disrupting housing values if they move to low-cost areas.

First, there's little reason to assume that large numbers of boomers will be able to change house prices in different areas by moving from expensive to low-cost markets.

Research shows that people prefer staying put rather than moving in retirement. A couple of years ago, for example, an AARP survey of homeowners 45 and older found that more than 80 percent of those polled wanted to stay in their own homes as long as possible as they age, in large part because they enjoy the communities where they live and have a support system there.

And how many people would move to take advantage of low house prices and living costs?

Most lower-cost areas tend to be smaller towns or cities that, despite their many virtues, also have generally less robust economies and less diverse and vibrant social scenes.

So the idea that droves of people would pull up roots and move to areas with very different characteristics than the places they've spent most of their lives doesn't seem realistic.

That said, I'm sure there will be some people willing, or even eager, to make such an adjustment. These will be people who see a community with a slower pace of life as just the sort of place they'd like to retire to.

Maybe they'll be able to net enough of a profit on the sale of their high-price home to buy new digs for cash. And if they still come away with a nice chunk of change they can live off of in retirement, so much the better.

For people interested in considering this sort of move, check out the relative living costs in different cities by clicking here.

But I expect that the more likely scenario is that most retirees will stay in their homes and take out a home equity line of credit or do a reverse mortgage if they need a lump sum of cash, a line of credit to draw on or a guaranteed lifetime income.

They could even get a combo of all three, while assuring that they can stay in their home the rest of their lives.

For more on the pros and cons of reverse mortgages as well as tips on how to choose one, check out this earlier column I wrote on such loans.

_________________________

Walter Updegrave is a senior editor at MONEY Magazine and is the author of "We're Not in Kansas Anymore: Strategies for Retiring Rich in a Totally Changed World."

For all the latest headlines in Ask the Expert, click here.