<p>So my age is not retirement yet, but my mind is. ( My siblings are older as are several coworkers. So my mind is really in retirement.). It is not that far off.</p>
<p>So what are your plans? My H and I like where we live during the summer and find it beautiful. But we find it tedious and long, or downright difficult, in the winter.</p>
<p>We are wondering whether we should move away. Another option is to stay and rent, or buy, another place for the winter—or at least a month or two (rent).</p>
<p>We have saved a decent amount of money. I’d also like to travel. Maybe we should just rent somewhere and be completely free of real estate. But where? </p>
<p>Ideas for good places to retire? What are your plans??</p>
<p>We live in paradise–temperate climate, my folks & most of my closest relatives live a 5-30 minute drive away, decent medical care, lovely scenery. We plan to stay where we are & H said when we bought this house about 23 years ago, he plans to spend the rest of his life here. It is a great neighborhood & we can afford to stay where we are living.</p>
<p>Mom has had friends who were “snowbirds,” who lived elsewhere for the summer but lived in HI for winters. Some of them continue to do so but some have finally settled down in a senior living community elsewhere, near their children & families.</p>
<p>I want to travel while we’re still healthy enough to do so comfortably and easily. To that end, we’re taking our 1st cruise in a few weeks (Alaska’s inside passage). We HOPE our kids will move back to HI if & when they start their families–if not, we may have to take extended visits to wherever they live. Have also heard for folks who buy an RV & drive around for a while, leaving inclement weather. H is NOT a fan of that idea but we would like to explore national parks more when we are retired.</p>
<p>One issue about renting is that you are at the whim of the owner/landlord. If they want you to move out, they can refuse to renew your lease. If they sell, you have to see if the new owner wants you as a tenant & what the rental rates will be. Renting does allow you to free up whatever equity you have built up in your home. One of my dad’s friends had to sell his home & is renting because his brokerage went bankrupt and left him w/o a pension. He still seems to have a pretty good quality of life (had LOTS of equity in his home).</p>
<p>I think it is useful to interview some financial planners to get some idea of where you stand vs. where you want to be when you retire. We got a few evaluations from different folks–one was paid on an hourly basis as a benefit from an employer in 2007. I also had our Charles Schwab advisor help me analyze our situation and make suggestions/recommendations.</p>
<p>BEFORE seriously considering moving, I’d try renting for months or a year in wherever you’re thinking of relocating to and being SURE that is what & where you want. Have known of many who decided the move wasn’t as great as they had hoped & then had to (or wanted to) move back!</p>
<p>For about five years before they retired my parents spent a few weeks each winter in the Ponte Vedra Beach area of Florida. They had close friends who lived there year round, so were able to develop a great social group there.</p>
<p>In retirement they remodeled their home (small town, northern Wisconsin) so they could live on one floor. Added a very large first floor bedroom, full handicapped accessible bathroom and laundry room. For fifteen years they lived in that home April- November, and rented a home (sometimes a townhouse) in Sawgrass near Ponte Vedra December through March. They had a wonderful time.</p>
<p>Their big decision came when they were in their 80’s and no longer wanted to split their time. They chose to stay in the home they had remodeled, and were able to remain there for the last years if their lives. They hired help as they aged. By the time my mother passed away in her mid 90’s she had full time live in help, but she didn’t want to leave her home for assisted living. It was a well thought out plan, but looking at it, I’m not sure I would choose the same route.</p>
<p>Those last years as a widow she was much more housebound and probably lonely (not that she ever said she was lonely) than she would have been in a more temperate climate, or even in an assisted living place. Her children lived very far away, and it was hard to get so much as a good bridge game together in the winter months because none of her friends wanted to take the chances of falling trying to get in and out of each other’s homes. </p>
<p>She loved her home, and the memories of my dad that were so strong in every room. Her mind was sharp, so her choice to stay put was fine. But winters that far north are long and dark.</p>
<p>So looking forward, I imagine that DH and I, who are not as wedded to our house, will choose to live either in a more temperate climate or closer to one of our children.</p>
<p>We’re waiting to see where the children wind up. I expect we’ll know where that is within five to ten years. Hence the house we are about to buy will be a five- to ten-year house.</p>
<p>That said, I did just ask DH why we’re not about to buy an RV instead. He didn’t have a good answer, and neither do I.</p>
<p>We (dh 53,me 50) recently sold our home of 23 years. We are presently renting in our town. We’ve built a new home in the coastal area of our state that we plan to be our next home/retirement home. We go there for weekends/holidays. </p>
<p>Our S2( youngest child) just graduated from college in May. He’s living w/ us while working a p/t job and seaching for full time work. When he gets fulltime work and is settled and self supporting,DH will begin looking for a job in the area where our new home is located. We are hoping all that will happen in the next year but until then we hare happy to be renting w/ no mortgage hanging over us.</p>
<p>My mother was not a big fan of winter, even in her prime. It always suprised me that she agreed to age in place in northern Wisconsin. I think she really believed my dad would outlive her, and he was a winter lover. And then when he passed away first … Well, by then she wasn’t about to move anywhere. The effort would have been too much.</p>
<p>So my advice is to make no assumptions about how long anyone is going to live, and really think about both the good and bad of living in any place. Honestly ask yourself if you would want to be there as a very old widow or widower. Would you be able to manage when you are less ambulatory? Making decisions about retirement requires rational thinking.</p>
<p>I will be eligible for retirement in 19 months but am planning on working until our youngest is out of college; likely 2019. Like VH we are very interested in knowing where the kids will wind up and then we’ll make a decision. In the meantime we are choosing vacation spots where we wouldn’t mind spending some time in retirement. So far we like Ruidoso, NM and Flagstaff, AZ.</p>
<p>I’ve been eyeing retirement in a year and a half, though DH will still work, so we will probably stay put. It’ll eventually depend on where our kids settle for sure (one is on the opposite coast and will probably stay there) as to where we end up, if we move.</p>
<p>All the successful “retirements” I know of included family. Since our family is pretty spread out across the country, it’s our intention to have a home base in some affordable place near a commercial airport. From there we can travel wherever we choose, renting a few months at a time. We have the disposition for this style of living, fortunately.</p>
<p>Ours, too. We bought a place there a few years ago in anticipation of retirement. We won’t move there full-time but will spend a lot of time there during the cold weather months.</p>
<p>We had fantasies about moving out into the country, maybe the mountains… on a lake, my wife would love a beach house, but ultimately we realized we enjoy the convenience of living near a city along with all of the entertainment, cultural, dining etc options that goes with that. Charlotte is not NYC, but my needs for culture are modest. This area has been perfect for us. The last thing I need is a second home, and I guess my wife still dreams about a house on the lake or at the beach. (I also don’t need the weather worries that come with a house at the beach)</p>
<p>Many of our retired friends are here to be near their grandchildren (we have none), so I appreciate the importance of family.</p>
<p>We are probably 7 years from retirement and would also like to be near at least one of our kids when we retire. The one who’s most likely to be stable is in Wash DC, but I can’t stand the heat and humidity there. The other one, who’s still in grad school, could end up anywhere in the country and could be changing jobs with some regularity, so moving near him might not make sense.</p>
<p>I’d like an affordable location, near an airport, good medical care, walkable areas, temperate climate (not too hot and humid). Not sure where that is.</p>
<p>I’m already retired but my wife has another 10 years or so to go since she’s a few years younger than me. We had long considered relocating to someplace warm when we’re both retired as neither of us can stand the long upstate NY winters. More recently, we’ve been thinking of buying a retirement home on Cape Cod and renting a place on Hilton Head between January 15 and March (as my in-laws once did). These plans are far from solid and I can also see us staying right in the little Hudson Valley village we’ve lived in for the past 20 years or moving to wherever life takes our daughters after college and grad school.</p>
<p>Still sold on south central Virginia. Wife would like HI but too confining to me. I like to get in the car and just go somewhere. From Va we are a short day drive from NYC and Charleston and points in between. Low COL and temperate 4 season climate. And hills with great country roads to explore. Major college sports, a pro road-racing track, and little traffic. Very happy with the choice. And our houses bought in 2003 and 2005 did not lose much value from the peak and are still up nicely overall.</p>
<p>The summers are appalling, yes, but there are some very pleasant places to live that are within a block or two of a Metro station. Can’t drive anymore? Who cares? It doesn’t affect your lifestyle.</p>
<p>My neighbor has a timeshare, so far this year he has gone to Denver, Fiji and is going to Palm Springs and Ocean shores in a few days. I get to be an armchair traveler. :)</p>
<p>H & I went to see one D graduate and another just to visit, but generally don’t travel that much. Want to get a tear drop trailer however. We never upsized, so we don’t have to downsize as several of my friends are trying to do, but we do need to make some changes on the house to be able to age in place as I already have mobility issues. Because of that, we are planning to stay in the city to have good access to medical care, especially as we don’t know where either of the girls will land.</p>
<p>Love to add more room for a guest bedroom though. I don’t know how I raised two kids, two cats & a 70lb lab in a two bedroom one bath cottage!</p>
<p>We’ve been working on this question for several years. DH and I agree that we don’t want to stay where we are, which is a family suburb, but it has been a long process figuring out where to go. We set a lot of criteria then researched and visited all of the top contenders, including meeting with a realtor and reviewing the housing market in our targets.</p>
<p>In the end, San Diego took the prize. We live in the Chicago area now, my family is nearby, DH’s family is on the east coast, and our son is in San Jose. San Diego meets nearly all of our criteria:</p>
<p>Good weather (I do not want to live with winter and neither of us want very hot/humid)
Cost of living (taxes are the biggest problem in California but Illinois isn’t so great either)
Cost of housing (this is the hardest to meet in California)
Recreation/entertainment/access to body of water (best part of SD)
Socialization opportunities (including a identifiable Jewish population)
Major urban access
Neighborhoods, walking, shopping, etc.
Ease of transportation - airports, highways, trains
Safety/crime
Employment potential</p>
<p>We spent two months renting in SD this winter and really enjoyed our everyday life there. We have a good idea of where we’d like to live and what the housing would cost. Unfortunately there’s a gap between our current house’s value (mortgage all paid) and what we know we’d need to spend there to get what we want. We know we could get a mortgage to cover that gap but DH would like us to have some additional income before making that move (I’m retired but willing to work; he consults but is between contracts). I think we could do it now but he’s not so sure; if it was all up to me we’d have moved five years ago when we first began our research. We’ve been in this house for 25 years so it will be a big upheaval, but other than my family there isn’t anything to keep us in this area. And of course I’d like to closer to DS.</p>
<p>I grew up in western NC; I hate the cold, and I love the ocean and the changing seasons. Hubby grew up in northern WI; he hates humidity and loves the Packers.</p>
<p>We’re planning to retire to western NC and buy a Dish subscription to some NFL channel/channel for football season.</p>
We bought a place there a few years ago in anticipation of retirement. We won’t move there full-time but will spend a lot of time there during the cold weather months.</p>