Why move? Well…most of the good friends we have here have already relocated. We don’t have family near here at all, and we are tired of the long winters. We also don’t need this big house, and getting something smaller in this state would cost us more than what we could sell for.
When DH retires, this will become a much more serious conversation!
We were going to downsize anyway since DH was tired of taking care of a large house, especially in winter. We were also tired of the cold weather and snow. We also lived 6-8 hour drives away from both sons so we moved a little further south. We now have milder winters, live in an apartment (maybe looking to buy a condo), and live close to one son. Other son and his family are a 7 hour drive away, only 1 hour further than where we used to live.
I wish we could be closer to grandkids, but they live in a very cold, snowy location, so we plan to spend extended time near them in the summer.
There’s more to do where we live now and we’ve met some new people.
Because we live in Cleveland, and were transplants almost 30 years ago. None of our family is here, except one adult daughter. Most of our older friends have left the area already. We chose our particular community for the great school system (best decision ever), but it offers little to residents other than that. And the Cleveland Browns. ‘Nuff said.
So…I guess we feel few ties here and are financially able to have a better quality of life elsewhere. We CAN leave, so we will, hopefully.
@cypresspat I hear you…but as a Cleveland native…it’s on our list of possibilities. But we like Columbus better.
And for the Browns…there is always next year!
We’re not going anywhere. We live in a great area, close to a vibrant downtown and a mile in from the beach. Our home, while a touch small at the moment with two teenagers in it, will be “right-sized” when it is just the two of us (plus it’s a single story so no worries about the stairs getting the best of us later in life). Most of our extended families are within an hour of us, and I can’t imagine starting over and making new friends anywhere else.
I do wish the area was a little less expensive, but that’s the tradeoff for what we have.
While we do plan to remain here forever, once retired, we hope to rent our home out some summers and travel (we live in a hot summer rental market).
There are a lot of good practical reasons above for staying or moving.
We will likely NOT move largely because H is a creature of habit and he just wouldn’t get it. You have a home, you stay in it. Two things that would drive our “staying” are our kids (one in town, 2 a couple hours away) and being 3ish hours away from our warm weather cottage.
That said…an opportunity to start fresh? In a new town? With new things to do, a new house to love, a chance to make the daily routine new and fresh?! YES. Yes, I’d love to do that! A fresh start at retirement sounds sort of AMAZING to me!!!
Besides our kids and other family members within an hour there is nothing keeping us here. We don’t really have friends that we hang out with at all. Just never been our style.
I enjoy these threads and love reading the different suggestions and researching areas of the country that are unfamiliar to me.
We will have to downsize. The yard requires too much maintenance and snow removal is becoming too much. We love our neighbors and the location of our house. It’s in a beautiful area with walks through conservation land, but we know we can’t stay here. We don’t have local family and most friends have gradually moved away, so there is nothing keeping us here. Our kids aren’t settled yet so moving to be near them won’t work. I think we’ll wait another couple years to do it, but then we are considering all suggestions.
Not at all sure of what we will do. I love my house and area. We live in a town in a location where we can walk to downtown and to parks. Good access to the city. Have enough friends and community that I don’t want to move. But it is in the northeast so the winters are not great and property taxes are very high. When we bought this house, one of the things I like is that it seems like we could age in place.
Two of my kids are likely to stay in the area. One not so sure of. Friends are starting to move away, or become snowbirds living in Florida for half the year to avoid income tax. But most are still here. I honestly have no idea where we would relocated to. My current idea is to stay here but spend some time in the south each winter visiting friends.
Once we are “old old” I definitely want to be near at least one of my kids. Not to live with, but to be sure someone will be close by to visit. My father-in-law lived in a wonderful retirement community, but as he became aged and infirm, he become more isolated (all his kids were either a plane trip or a very long car trip away).
I think we will move to get out from under the responsibility and expense of a too-large house in a very suburban community that was a great place to raise our kids. H involuntarily retired a year or so ago (had to sell a family business, long story) and we talk pretty much daily about where to go. Although we’d love to explore somewhere new, we live in a suburb of NYC and all our kids (and GS) live in NYC. I’ve said I’m not leaving this area if all the kids are here. Our current thinking is to sell the large house and rent in the city. Close enough to friends still in the suburbs while offering us the kind of easy access to cultural activities, a walking lifestyle, and our kids that we’d be looking for. Our best friends moved into the city 3 years ago and we spend a lot of time there anyway. We may also investigate renting elsewhere, either the mountains for the summer or south for the winter, before making a final decision.
I have lived my entire life in the Northeast, with the past 22 years in the suburbs north of NYC. When the time comes to retire (10 years or so), I plan on getting out. The cost of living here is prohibitive, especially if you are on a fixed retirement income. I dislike the long gray winters more and more with each passing year. Having spent the past 25 years commuting to work there, I also look forward to the day when I can put NYC in the rearview mirror for the last time. Ideally, I’d like to spend summers and early fall in Maine and the rest of the year someplace that is warm and sunny.
Why move?
Why stay?
Compromise?
Why leave? Because I live in a depressed area. Why did we stay? In the beginning, a combo of H’s family, inertia, and hope that things would get better. Later, we became “bought in.” Most of our retirement living will be dependent on our pensions, so now we stay until our time is up. And there are good people here, so it’s not all that awful. I also adore my house. It’s a 1910 Victorian with a wrap around porch, large rooms, 10.5 foot ceilings throughout. Almost every room (including 4/5 bedrooms and 1 bath) has at least 2 doors, so it’s open without being open. But at 4000 SF (not counting the full attic with permanent staircase and the horror movie quality dirt basement), it’s way too big for 4 people let alone 2 and not friendly to the elderly. But, we have enjoyed living here and becoming part of its history.
H wants to move as badly, if not more, than me. However, it will be harder for him, as he’s lived here his entire life. Neither of us are big social people, but he definitely has more friends than I do.
I am also strange that I have zero desire to settle or find my roots. In my fantasy world, I could just pick up and plop down wherever I wanted to go, whenever I wanted to go – and life would just be magically set up for me. I have no desire to own anything. I just want to wander and see the world. H does not share this desire, so compromises will be made. When we first leave, we will still need to work until Medicare age. He’s been wanting to work at a certain historic site his whole life. We will go there first. After that, I’d like to move west.
We met, married, and raised our children in Utah, which is a wonderful place, but culturally a little uncomfortable for us. As children, both DW’s and my families had moved around a lot, so we resolved to let our kids grow up in one place.
We located in Park City, within 20 minutes of three world class ski resorts, but as we got older found ourselves skiing less and less.
When the kids graduated from college we realized they’d never return to our town; appropriate employment doesn’t exist there.
So we moved to Washington to be close to extended family. DW was hesitant to make the change, so she gave me a seemingly impossible challenge: “find a good deal on north facing (out the back) waterfront house on the Puget Sound and I’ll take a look.”
Her reasoning was sound. She wanted to “live” out the back of the house, and wanted the back north facing so we could have lots of windows that would never need to be covered to protect from the sun or curious neighbors.
I found the perfect opportunity, situated exactly to her specifications, a mess of a house, partially remodeled but bare down to the studs, no plumbing or wiring, owned by a bank. We bought it for the value of the land, finished it to our tastes, and created $500k instant equity.
We’ve been here 4 years, have made a lot of friends, and have no regrets. Best of all, the kids refer to this place as “home”, as in “I’ll be home for Christmas “.
I’ve told my story before but essentially I could no longer handle an empty friendless life in a winter climate. Took me 10 years to convince husband and make the move but it saved me. We had both been working then but I was 100% telecommuting and he switched from employment to consulting over those years. I spent the years tracking our housing market and scouring the country for potential relocations. Over the years we checked out many possible destinations but I knew I was destined to be a Southern California girl!
My husband would have been fine stagnating forever but he did agree our suburban house was not the right place for us for the rest of our lives. But he had no idea of what he wanted to do. I had a very clear idea so figured we might as well make one of us happy so nagged my way to the move.
We did leave our son, my mother, and brother and family behind, but my mother passed away literally days after we moved and son ended up in Seattle almost three years ago. And sister-in-law doesn’t much like me anyway ;).
We knew no one here but had no friends back in Chicagoland anyway. After joining a wonderful MeetUp, we made tons of friends here and can have as active of a social life as we like. Don’t miss anything (except maybe some of the restaurants); certainly don’t miss snow. Absolutely no regrets.
Our son does consider this his home even though our old house is where he had lived since birth and boomeranged to for a few years. He lived in an apartment for a couple of years after we moved and is in one now in Seattle. He is very happy that our family owns a real home with a yard etc.
When asked by others, my husband says he’s happy about the move. The only downside is that he doesn’t see any need to travel anymore. It’s true that we’re essentially living a vacation life.
Ahhhh, Ohio. I loved it as a kid. My DH asked me if I wanted to move back & I very seriously considered it. Our S is in school an hour from Columbus and I still have a ton of family there. I’d have a really hard time saying no to a house in Hudson or Chagrin Falls… until winter came!! LOL
We just pretend the Browns don’t exist and wait till baseball season. 
All the interest in Ohio. Hmm. Lived here all my life so maybe I just take it for granted. Gave up on Cleveland sports teams a long time ago. Makes life easier. And as bad as they are, no one really talks about them so not missing out.
We likely will move when we retire. By that point, our ties to the area will be gone. May look at where kids settle. Or someplace else. Outside a national park would be nice. Still time to figure that one out. But no issue with leaving here is that is the decision.
We will probably stay here by default, even though Maryland is not a great place financially to retire. My doctors are here, but most of them are my age and will be retiring soon – but I’m medically complicated and need good resources. We don’t have a lot of local friends, and those we have are likely moving once they retire. DH will be happy to sit in his recliner and read/nap/eat if he ever retires.
My younger son is likely to return to this area once he returns from overseas. Older S is likely to stay in CA. Flights here are frequent and fairly inexpensive.
DH’s only brother lives in northern NJ, which isn’t any cheaper than this area.
I fear we’ll stay in this house because it’s more expensive to downsize to a condo. I am not able to do much physical work these days on the house, so I expect we’ll be paying more for services going forward. Packing up this place is intimidating, too. S2 has expressed interest in our house down the road.
Why not move together with your friends? We have several friends who are in the same age group and we’re actively looking to move together.
If one or both of my kids stay, that is a no brainer for me. Plus, unless it was a adult community, I think I would be too isolated. I have lots of my friends here. The older I get, the harder it has become to make new ones it seems. As long as I can get away a lot while We can, I’m good. I wouldn’t mind getting away fir a month or so somewhere warmer. Rent a house or condo, friends and family can visit.
We’ll probably stay put in retirement. Our local ties go back several generations: my family has been in our town for over 200 years, has attended the same church since the 1830’s for example. First, second and third cousins are all considered close connections. We also have a fairly low cost of living in our area.
We tried the Florida beach house thing when our children were young, got to feeling guilty about the kids only going there for vacation and sold out when they were in middle school. It was good for us in a way: we realized that we missed concerts, college basketball games, and other lifestyle amenities that weren’t accessible in a resort setting. We also missed our friends and family when we stayed there for extended periods and I telecommuted. The relationships we made at the beach were good, but not comparable to the ones we have at home. It was beautiful there, but we got bored after a while.
We don’t expect our kids to return home after school, but have decided that we will likely stay put and travel when we get restless. I can see us moving closer to one of the children, but that’s about the only reason we would leave home.
I know our situation is different from most, but we found that beach living wasn’t the paradise we thought it would be, especially when our neighbors changed every week. Holidays were awful as well.