Is buying your first home at the age of 55 smart?

[Ahkeem Smith]

So my mom is closing in on her retirement and she's never owned a house before. My fear is that she'll have to work longer just to maintain her mortgage payments well after retirement. She planned on using money from her retirement account for a down payment, which also made me nervous. Is there a way she can use her 401k retirement money to purchase a few safe investments FIRST to build her asset portfolio so that all of her money isn't tied into just one house?