We lived in Boulder until I was six, so many many decades ago. A couple of years ago, my brother was shocked - shocked - that our old house was estimated at about a million. I laughed because (1) I knew what the Boulder market had been doing; the house was the lowest value in that neighborhood and (2) asked if he had seen the estimated value of our house here in SD. A million is nothing LOL! Our house has more than doubled in value in the nine years we’ve been here.
2 Likes
It seems like a good idea to rent in a new area before retiring there. Just a heads up that in Colorado (and many places) lots of weather variations. Most winters here are fairly mild, with plenty of sunshine between the snowstorms. (In my area, the city only plows the smaller streets if a lot of snow fell AND no warmup coming… which means we can go for years without seeing a snowplow - usually not a problem). But sometimes we to have long cold weather, especially in January.
2 Likes
Looking at CONDOS that are $1mm+, a house for <$600k sounds awesome!
1 Like
When I read that I thought you were impressed with how reasonable that was. Lol. Guess it’s all about where you are coming from.
1 Like
That’s one of the draws of CO vs. New England (where we currently reside). FoCO actually gets less snow and more sun. I don’t want to give up winter all together, I’d just like to see the sun sometime between Oct and March. We are proficient snow drivers and plan on getting a condo so no more shoveling.
2 Likes
We are originally from NY. The CO winters are far more tolerable. Weather can be unpredictable, so I joke that “we take our 300 days of sunshine whenever they come”. Now that we are retired, we’ve been able to spend more time doing travels in Colorado, Utah etc. When working, we spent much of our vacation time visiting family on East coast.
2 Likes
CO is my dream relocation state. Husband is a smoker tho so it’s challenging for him. 
1 Like
NYC outlawed short-term rentals because of the extreme shortage of permanent housing. And it appears to have worked.
3 Likes
I just finished a weeklong trip to St. Thomas and St. Croix, US Virgin Islands to visit family. Traveled on JetBlue where I have points and regular seats are less sardine-like. Both from home and back to home via San Juan. When I checked in at the airport in St. Croix Thursday morning, the agent told me that there was a very long walk from CapeAir to JetBlue in San Juan and that I might want to consider a wheelchair. So I did! Hey, wth, I’m 76!
10 Likes
I tried to sell ShawWife on CO. She loves winter but her friends are in New England, her family is East Coast (mostly) and her art connections are more East Coast. She wanted to keep our house in Boston area and get an equivalent house in Boulder. We could not do both at the time. But, sun in the winter is a great thing.
2 Likes
We like Colorado for retirement, but we have 30 year “roots” here, after childhoods and early careers in upstate NY. The weather is to our liking…. 4 seasons, but lots of sunshine. House paid off, taxes low-ish. Decent medical care in our town, but Denver resources not too far away. However people researching retirement here often find that Colorado is more crowded and expensive than they expected. And wildfire risk is admittedly higher than in the early years, when all the big fires were in remote forests.
Of course it still does make a dandy vacation destination! For folks who like beer, we have lots of great brewpubs in Boulder County. Lefthand and Oscar Blues and Avery are the biggest, but lots of smaller ones too.
7 Likes
For less crowded and cheaper? Wyoming (but not Jackson Hole).
1 Like
Yes, Wyoming is much less crowded than Colorado! Cheaper than CO too, but not as low as expected last time I glanced at Zillow during a roadtrip there. The obvious down side would be lack of medical facilities, culture etc. And whenever we’ve been there it seems so windy!
Lots of nice places to visit in Wyoming if you like outdoorsy vacations.
2 Likes
I love Wyoming in so many ways but i couldn’t live there for numerous reasons. It is beautiful however, with so much to do for an outdoor enthusiast.
1 Like
Wyoming has absolutely beautiful parts. I have had several backpacking vacations there in days of yore (Yellowstone, Tetons and Bighorn NF). I also was there a couple of times for client engagements in Cheyenne.
Wyoming has no state income tax and there is both a sales tax and a mining royalty tax. The population is around 580K, which is between the population of Baltimore and the population of Memphis. As a consequence, much of the state is empty (and east of the Rockies flat). Jackson and environs are very expensive. It is very cold in the winter. It is very, very conservative and I think has morphed into very, very MAGA, which could be a problem for some, although the Jackson area voted for Biden. They fund the state university system well if I recall correctly.
If I weren’t allergic to the cold and I wanted to avoid state income tax, I would consider Wyoming for retirement. I have a friend with a house in Jackson and he says that in the winter months, you can often be stuck there because planes won’t fly in and out during the frequent storms. For me, the cold, the likelihood of being socked in, and the political environment probably make it a no.
3 Likes
I think that is true of many places.
That said, we lived in Colorado the first years we were married and the summer weather there is fabulous! The winters seemed less harsh than those we were used to in Northern Illinois.
2 Likes
A friend who is really into outdoor activities has moved/retired from CA to a place near Kalispell, MT on Flathead Lake. It was beautiful last summer but I don’t think I could deal with the cold and isolation in winter.
3 Likes
For us, it’s medical care. Right now that is the big thing tying us to MA. CO also has very good care which is why we can consider it.
1 Like
What we like about our CO front range town (and similar to very many other places all over US) is that we don’t have actually to live in BigCity/Denver to have access to the wide range of city medical resources.
1 Like
This just in from Slate re Wyoming. Jackson Hole Was Already in the Most Economically Unequal County in the Country. Then the Road Into Town Collapsed.
2 Likes