We had a vacation home in Hilton Head, SC that we recently sold. It is wonderful there, but keep your eye on the cost of flood insurance. Congress was talking about coastal insurance increases last year, but put it on hold for now. I’ll be in shock if it doesn’t go up significantly over the next decade. I live in North Carolina and our legislators have decided to ignore the predicted rise in sea level and instead are allowing more development in areas of the coast that are predicted to be underwater in 30 years. NC is also discussing drilling along the coast. If it happens, it’s supposed to be pretty far out. We’ll see. Just be careful and ask about future coastal plans when purchasing along the Carolina coast.
I had thought we’d try to see where our children end up before deciding where to retire, but they could move too. Right now, S1 lives in CA, 3000 miles away. I think he moved there thinking he’d stay for 5 years and then move back east, but, what if he decides he really likes it in CA? There’s no way for us to make a decision in the next 2-3 years based on where he lives.
S2 is currently in DC. Although I like the city, I don’t like the summer weather. He may be more likely to stay put though.
We have this discussion all the time. After last winter we are ready to be done with New England and definitely want to go somewhere further south, regardless of where the kids end up. We like Florida but have been there only on vacation. We have some family there that love it and others that have moved back home after a couple years saying they couldn’t stand it. We have considered North and South Carolina but really aren’t that familiar with them. I don’t want to be right on the coast, where I need to be concerned about storm flooding on a regular basis, but a few miles inland would be good. Also would like to be in a decent size metro area so there are things to do and shopping and healthcare are easliy accessible. We’ve got 8 more years to figure it out as our youngest is just finishing 8th grade and the current plan is to retire when he graduates college.
YouTube makes it really easy to “research” places without leaving one’s couch and there is something to be said for that. Oh, yeah, I know, it is more authentic to travel there, for purposes of this conversation let’s pretend money does in fact grow on trees, still, the next best thing to visiting the place is watching a few YT videos and getting a feel for the place.
I’ve been doing some thinking about this thread’s topic since I opened it and it seems to me, when it comes to retirement places, or even places to visit, one tends to go for what one doesn’t already have. So, for example, if you are from the Northeast and you are used to big city living and professional sports teams and art museums and what not you might want to have the opposite of all that. One of the ladies I work with is planning to move to Vermont after she retires. Why Vermont? She told me they want something peaceful and quiet. She is married so she won’t be completely alone (she isn’t bad on the eyes, I might add).
I’m from a hot weather, medium to big sized, deep South community. So for me Colorado sounds exotic. I’m going to Denver next may for a conference. I can’t wait. I also plan to email the organization board and suggest Ashville NC make the list one of these years. If you don’t want to Tantalize yourself then you surely do not want to go to YT and watch a few videos on Ashville NC. Don’t do it. If you do it, I can guarantee you Ashville will show up on your maybe list.
Damn that place is beautiful.
So is Denver.
I’ve heard great things about Costa Rica but I doubt seriously I’d want to live there.
Hearing what people value, in their retirement years, is really interesting to me. Some folks, and I’m not saying this is wrong, feel like their jobs are done once the kids get out of college or grad school or whatever. If that is the case, it sure as heck opens up the budget for retirement planning and now we are talking hog wild. There might even be confetti. But other folks, and I think I might be in that camp, don’t think my job ends when my kids get their educations or even hit their careers. I kind of what to help them build portfolios of stocks or real estate just for the fun of it.
That might explain why I am watching Ashville NC on YT and not in person. One of these days …
Good observation about people wanting something in retirement they don’t currently have.
We talked about buying a retirement home at one point, but then we looked at the cost of homes, and we would get a lot less home for our money than what we have now. When you factor in closing costs, etc., it just didn’t see like a good idea. Plus, we really like our current home, and have built many memories here. Not to mention that when you live in a state that doesn’t tax pensions, if makes it less attractive to move to a state that does.
What we might do, is pick a location and rent a place for the dreaded winter months we suffer in the north. That gives us the flexibility of choosing different locations each year if we want to. Renting also allows us relief from the brutal winters without the upkeep of another property.
Very smart, Fly to the Moon. One year you can go to somewhere small and exotic in Arizona, the next year you can travel to the Deep South, and the year after that Cali. We are all renting when you think about it. Unless you plan to live forever, you are renting. We all need a place to live. So the smart thing to do is use your primary residence as “home base” and then venture out from there when you can and want too.
The idea of renting for three months, lets say the winter months, is very, very smart and gives you all kinds of flexibility. There are so many places in this great country that are cool.
My sister/brother in law decided on two houses. There is a Florida house (Ft. Myers area) for about 6 months of the year and a PA “lake/mountains” house for the warmer months. They haven’t actually started the retirement schedule yet, but they have the houses (as well as a 3rd one which had been their main residence in suburban Phila which they are trying to sell). This plan would not work for me. It’s a 20 hour or more drive between the houses and they have 7 or 8 animals that have to be transported. Upkeep on both houses is significant- yards etc (partly due to said animals). They tend to welcome stress and work, so maybe it will work for them. In theory, something like this might work if you went with low maintenance places and could do some air travel back and forth. For them- it just seems like an undertaking.
My mom had several friends who had multiple places and would stay at one place and then the next over the year. After several years of it, they opted to just settle at one place and visit the other. It got tiring schlepping everything from place to place. Everyone is different, so when folks are relatively healthy and able, probably not as big a deal to switch households regularly, but after a while, who knows?
We’ve had our second home for over five years now and it works very well for us. We use it mostly in the winter but also visit throughout the year. It isn’t a matter of ‘schlepping everything from place to place’. In fact, we avoid most schlepping because we have everything we need in the second home, including clothes, so that all we need to do is arrive. We also have a caretaker who looks after things when we’re not there and it’s in a gated community with 24 hour security so that isn’t a worry either.
Thanks. We thought we were pretty smart. :)) It’s nice to have someone recognize that. LOL
We have a second home and we don’t schlep stuff in general, but I always end up with most of my lake house clothes somehow making their way to my primary home. So I do usually end up packing clothes and my lap top. Also, the wine choices out there are not to my taste, so if we want wine, we have to purchase it in Dallas and bring it along. And sometimes I’ll stop at Whole Foods on the way. Oh, and I bring the dog, and if we are staying for more than a few nights, the cat.
I guess we do actually do a bit of “schlepping.” 
I’ve known some retired couples here in Maine that rented in FL every year from Jan-March. They rented the same place every year, and so did a lot of other people, so it had the added advantage of having an established social cricle without the PITA of second home ownership.
FL has low taxes, but if you are anywhere near a coast the windstorm insurance is a killer. No problem with flooding as we are on high ground (32 feet - woo!) We have lived in Miami since 79, survived hurricanes Andrew (cat 5, thought we’d die), Katrina, Rita, Wilma and a few others. The tough building codes in S FL mitigate some of the risk, but storms can be life-changing events. The best way to deal with it: RENT DON’T OWN.
The nicest places in FL, IMHOP, are the panhandle - cooler climate, gorgeous beaches and southern culture, and the SW coast around Naples to Ft Myers, close to the 'glades and within a few hours from the Keys and Miami/Ft Lauderdale. There are many other nice spots, but those two are under consideration for retirement. We can never again live in cold weather.
I have family in S Alabama, around Mobile/Fairhope/Gulf Shores and it is beautiful. You couldn’t design a nicer town than Fairhope, AL.
Agree about the idea of renting, at a minimum to check out the location/area before making an expensive real estate decision. The transaction costs of buying & selling, and the hassle & expense of moving make it a high cost/high risk proposition if you wind up not liking the place.
A large chunk of the people we know have second homes but we’ve always preferred to rent homes for trips and vacations, and could see ourselves doing the same to check out different areas as retirees, unless we truly fall in love with a locale. It’s nice not to have to worry about the maintenance, to try different places, to have natural disasters be someone else’s issue. There is so much of the world to see and you can rent so cheaply in many other countries, I don’t think I can see us settling down in retirement until age and health makes travel uncomfortable.
Renting is a nice option. Some of the 55+ places let you rent and have furniture, 3 meals a day and activities for a modest monthly amount. One could get weekly or monthly rates at Residence Inn or similar with breakfast, some meals and some transportation as well. Many options, depending on preferences.
Ft. Myers gets really crowded in season and getting over the bridges to the nice beaches is a nightmare.
My sister lives in the Atlanta area and also has a condo at St. Simons Island. She loves SSI and plans to move there fulltime within the next few years. DH and I have been the beneficiaries of her not living there fulltime. We’ve spent a week there the past two summers and thoroughly enjoyed it. I think I could live there w/ no problem!
When you have an only child your decision on retirement places is easy. I will haunt my D as long as I can.
Flagler Beach, Florida. Affordable, oceanfront, old Florida charm. Nothing like it.
We are very much enjoying our retirement in Lynchburg, VA. Very close to the Blue Ridge but also close enough to major cities and the beach without the higher costs and traffic. Had to go to DC a few weeks ago—no thanks on a regular basis. Our taxes are pretty low but public services are very good–much better than Seattle. Not much hurricane or other extreme weather danger or flooding.