Almost positive we’ll be relocating to North Carolina within two years. My wife and I are 63. Our daughter lives in Winston-Salem and she’ll be staying in North Carolina, forever. Our son probably will move around with his job.
Our daughter has lived in Fayetteville, Greensboro and Winston-Salem and likes Winston-Salem the best. Its downtown is developing. Wake Forest University is in Winston-Salem.
I also want to check out the Raleigh-Durham area but it’s probably most costly.
We’ll sell our house of 20+ years and rent an apartment in North Carolina. I don’t want the burden of maintaining a house and its property and personally having to pay taxes and upkeep. We should make a good profit on a sale and that money will help our retirement and aging.
SJChessMom, right, Beacon Hill, not Bunker Hill. Big difference, my mistake.
I want a place where I can cut the grass, rake the leaves and clear the snow. My dad is in his mid 80s and does those things. Though its on a smaller scale now than in the house where I grew up. So I have another 30+ years of doing them. Nice to get outside and get some exercise to boot.
DH doesn’t want to deal with 12"+ snowfalls anymore, so staying in New England is out. We have a steep driveway and we’re on a corner lot with alot of sidewalk. We priced having someone do it this year, and the estimates were ridiculous because of the sidewalk.
We moved here to NC from northern CA 17 years ago. Specifically for my 5 kiddos who were in high school or about to be…and the UCs were just cost-prohibitive for me. The UNC system offered so many choices for both undergrad and grad/professional schools it made college doable for us as a family. 3 of the 5 kiddos attended undergrad in NC as in-state residents and son just finished his professional schools at UNC Chapel Hill on scholarship and fellowships combined with low-in-state rates made for very little debt in heavy debt-laden professional schools (MD/MBA).
With all of them grown and on their way I looked at the Greensboro area (another son graduated from A&T) and the Greenville NC area. Greenville is a college town (Eastern Carolina University), not far from the water, 17 minutes in the car, has a large regional medical center (Vidant Health Center) a large hospital system, 9+ hospitals over eastern Carolina and 80 minutes from Raleigh and RDU. City spans about 10 miles across and the adjoining city Winterville is oh so cute (it has an annual Watermelon Festival and Parade, think Doc Hollywood!) Rivaling it cuteness is the town to the east Farmville.
Having lived in San Diego in the late 70’s and early 80’s Greenville (pronounced Green-vul by the locals) feels like that, smells like it (saltiness from the water being so close-12 miles as the crow flies), they have music station just for beach music, boogie and blues and weather not as hot as Greensboro or as cold. Great BBQ and that smalltown feel but with the medical district taking up a large section of town many are not from Eastern Carolina.
COL is much, much cheaper than Raleigh and Greensboro. It does have a very little airport but the trip to RDU is all freeway so an easy trip. It has many of the same eateries as Raleigh and stores, just 1 of each instead of multiples. There are, however, 8 Bo Jangles in the city. And many mom and pop eateries and shops.
We settled into an old farmhouse (1921) all 1 floor with some acreage and 6 HUGE magnolia trees (150 years old) alongside a corn field. It is less than 1 mile from the medical center so we are technically in the medical district. Bus stop is in front of the house and it goes all over town for a $2 bus pass. Eggs are $.84 and half-gallon milk is $.86.
I love my NC, eastern Carolina is slower, the Q is fantastic, beaches close and even more affordable than where we were.
Kat
A half-gallon of milk for $.86? Holy cow. I just bought one this morning for $2.39.
@VeryHappy no pun intended…right?
Oops. That was a happy accident.
I would love it if more people would retire in Wisconsin. Pluses: reasonable food prices; real estate isn’t sky high; most communities have good public libraries; Milwaukee has a good bus system; plenty of health-care providers in urban and suburban communities. Pluses or minuses, depending on the individual: definitely four seasons; makeup of state government. Minuses: high property taxes in some places; poor public transportation in much of the state; expensive health care.
I know four families who are retiring to Milwaukee! All Marquette grads!
Ocean. I need ocean.
I’d like at cost and access to medical facilities first. That almost always means a university town with a medical center. Next I’d look at property prices/taxes/insurance for a ranch home or condo that is along a bus route, or near a main road if it is in an area with bad winters.
For lower costs that often means the midwest, excluding Illinois, or the south
I love all these discussions about where to retire, but what about taking into consideration where your children and eventual grandchildren live. As much as I hate our taxes and winters, being far away from family would make me sad, although I could certainly see going somewhere warm for a few months.
I like to dream about picking up and going, but count me in with those who would find it difficult to leave friends & family.
OP here – the focus of this thread is finding some place affordable, if you simply don’t have the funds to live where you would prefer.
What if your children and grandchildren are in Manhattan? Or San Francisco? Or Boston?
What if you do not have the income to just “go somewhere warm” for a few months?
Not all of us do, or will, have that kind of cash.
This thread is for those who expect to have $50K or less annually in retirement.
Nope…not going to consider where my two kids live. Right now they live 3000 miles apart and neither lives in a place I’m interested in.
BUT here is the main reason. They are like gnats. Just because they live someplace now there is NO guarantee how long they will stay there. I’m not moving near them…and then moving again if they move.
One of my criteria is living near a good airport so they can visit, or I can go and visit easily. Also. I’d like to pick a place where they will want to visit!
I’d love to be close to one or both of my children, but right now, my home is definitely in the most affordable location: Wisconsin versus New York City and Palo Alto. But even though it’s unlikely my children will move back here, I do have lots of family around. My mom still lives in the house (in Wisconsin) where I grew up, and two of my three siblings live in state (including one who lives two blocks away and just stopped by on his way to the grocery store). My ex’s parents also still live in the house where ex and his siblings grew up.
I hear what you are saying, but I’m also considering us as we age. Right now we’re managing health care for our parents in their mid nineties, which would be impossible if they were in some distant communities. Not saying I have any answers, but it’s certainly something to think about. Nice affordable walking neighborhoods are great until health declines. It’s almost as if we need a two step program for retirement, one when we’re active and taking advantage of all the community offers, and then when we need more hands on care.
What thumper said.
I actually have no intention of moving. I love my house and my town. My mortgage is also dirt cheap. I couldnt rent or buy anything decent anywhere for what I pay, even including my high prop taxes. We’ve basically decided to go someplace different each year for the worst months (Jan/Feb) once H retires in 2 1/2 years. Kid will come visit us there. It’ll be a cheap vacay for him.
Wherever I might move in the future, two things I’d consider would be weather patterns and access to clean and abundant water. I think both will increasingly be issues in the next 10, 20, 30 years. Last year’s hurricane season made clear that you could be in a state like Florida and a have few options to escape to in state, which can be even more of an issue when older, less mobile, and frail.