Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
One other place not mentioned is Athens Georgia. It boasts a beautiful downtown, a major university, two award winning hospitals, large/active convention/performing arts center, state botanical garden and it is only an hour from Atlanta or the North Georgia mountains. The cost of housing (other than an area called five points) and the cost of living are very low.
Just to be clear, my intent wasn't to criticize Fern for providing the link. My derision was meant for the WSJ claiming dangerous, crime-ridden & poverty-stricken Lima as one of the best places to retire abroad.
They may know something you don't. We have a lady in our water exercise class that spends the Summers here and then heads to one of those unsafe countries for the Winter. When we questioned her about the safety issue, she mentioned that she lived in a gated community and had a multiple bullet gun inside her home. She seemed to think she was all right. She also liked the cheap maid service, etc. To each his own. There seems to be crime everywhere these days.
Sometimes there are other factors such as health insurance too. If I leave my state the medicine part of my insurance becomes my problem but is part of my retirement package as long as I live in this state. Not a big difference and in my really old age, it will probably happen since my nurse daughter lives in a different state. I just like to use time shares and take short vacations to other places.
We do a chat thread and one of our friends on there is at what to me would be an ideal location for a retirement location. She lives in Surry County, North Carolina. The weather there is cooler in the Summer than many locations in this state. She is close enough to Winston-Salem to take advantage of the excellent medical care. She has four seasons and beautiful scenery along with being near the Blue Ridge Parkway and the recreation that brings.
They may know something you don't. We have a lady in our water exercise class that spends the Summers here and then heads to one of those unsafe countries for the Winter. When we questioned her about the safety issue, she mentioned that she lived in a gated community and had a multiple bullet gun inside her home. She seemed to think she was all right. She also liked the cheap maid service, etc. To each his own. There seems to be crime everywhere these days.
We're not talking about some unnamed, unknown country where some anonymous person thinks she's safe; we're talking about a specific metropolitan city: Lima, Peru.
Cary NC was to me a fake built up totally suburban area with no history or diversity. They believed so strongly in pretty looks that they tried to hide signs making it incredibly hard to find things. Lots and lots of lawns and culdesacs.
I much preferred the action and interest of the Chapel Hill area and as I said the area is premium and for a short distance you can lower cost of real estate. However, I would prefer close. Durham was reinventing itself too and would be a choice worth checking out.
We had friends all over the area because of the Research Triangle Park concentrating professionals and some lived in rural areas and some downtown.
NC is totally beautiful but for concentration of what you expressed an interest in, the whole Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area fits.
Chapel Hill may well not fit his budget, it is quite pricey within the town. Charlottesville, VA is a university town with a wonderful senior center (all kinds of classes and activities for the intelligent retiree) and senior services seem to abound. Pretty place, too, with a cool downtown teeming with current andretired professionals as well as students.
I am planning for my retirement and want to move out of high stress and very expensive Rockville MD, just outside of Washington DC. The cost of living, especially housing, makes living in this area not so attractive for many retirees unless they have lots of money in their 401K.
Recently I have been checking out towns all over America that may be a good place to retire but find that many of them that are sold as being inexpensive are cheap for a reason. So many places where the cost of housing is low seem run down and tired.
Is it possible to find a place where the cost of housing is low but there is lots of college educated professionals and cultural opportunities and the quality of life usually found in high income areas? Plus the shopping and nice restaurants found in high income towns.
Help me find cheap but a very professional place.
Actually, a place like Cincinnati has quite a few nice, safe and relatively close suburban areas where you can get comparable homes for half the price of Rockville. Cinci has quite a few schools in the area, U of Cinci, Xavier and Miami of Ohio are all in the area, and they have a decent cultural environment. It also has quite a few nice shopping areas, and a great downtown with a lot of restaurants.
Like any major city, it has it's slum areas too, but overall the city is quite nice.
So many of the 'Affordable Retirement Location' lists focus only on cost, without considering where one might actually want to spend their 'Sunset years.' (Idaho, Wichita, Detroit ... etc). Who wants tacky and rundown ... at any price?
A more sensible approach is to identify one's desired location ... and then shop for homes that offer desired amenities. If the price point for the desired location and amenities exceed one's budget, then one must do a 'reality check' and adjust either or both their location/amenities requirements.
- This is the approach one takes to almost any major purchase. There is no reason to make a home purchase more 'emotional' by injecting artificial parameters. --- It's not really that complicated.
By the way, if you feel comfortable sharing your story, the OP might be very interested in the town you retired to. If I recall correctly you lived in the DC metro area, like the OP, and chose a town that is much less expensive and may fit some or all of his other requirements. And we would all benefit from reading an experience of someone choosing a new place then actually moving there. I remember when you moved, and thinking you had chosen wisely.
Congratulations on your retirement, Caladium! I wish you all the best in your new adventures and a future move.
As you said, maybe the word "best" in the title for the WSJ link was a poor word choice. "Different" would be a better fit. The link mentions an e-book with 30 different stories/locations and the experiences people have had (for anyone looking for recent experiences--I haven't looked at it yet). Budget, preferences, priorities, and trade-offs definitely give a person plenty to consider when making a decision on a location. Having a positive attitude about making the move work is also important (getting overwhelmed or discouraged with the transition is something that can keep people from moving to a new place).
Since you asked, a summary:
We began to look at retirement locations about 6 years before my husband's retirement from the air force. We considered Port Angeles/Sequim and Bellingham, Washington; the Oregon Coast; the Shasta/Lassen area of northern CA; the Rapid City area of South Dakota; Nebraska (we loved living there); upstate New York; New Hampshire; and Maine. I was also interested in Alaska, Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Iowa (I have family in MN and Iowa and like the region). I like knowing that I looked at all my options, and the variety in the United States is interesting.
Needs: Inexpensive living, but high quality of life
Reasonable property taxes
Minimal hot/humid weather
Prefer autumn/winter (we like snow)
Plenty of places to kayak and hike
A few acres
Convenient to airport
Under 1 hour to ocean
Maine really fit all our needs; we had always wanted to visit or live in Maine. With the first visit, it felt like we found a place that felt like home. I studied a detailed map of Maine, read online news, and followed real estate listings for 3+ years to figure out what areas would be a good fit.
Inexpensive means different things to each person, but inexpensive shouldn't have to mean settling for a less-than-comfortable community or home. We did not explore urban living, but Indianapolis and Pittsburgh would be two that I would recommend for more affordable city living.
Hope everyone finds the places that makes them content and comfortable in retirement!
Is it possible to find a place where the cost of housing is low but there is lots of college educated professionals and cultural opportunities and the quality of life usually found in high income areas? Plus the shopping and nice restaurants found in high income towns.
Help me find cheap but a very professional place.
I recently spent a sabbatical leave in Toledo, staying in the Old Orchard area near the university. My spouse and I are quite fond of the city, which is made up of neighborhoods that seem to function as small towns. Everything needed for day-to-day living (and then some) was available within walking distance of our apartment, and most areas of the city are quite safe. Toledo has an excellent Metropark system, a fine small art museum, and a library system that just passed a major levy. The traffic was much less than in the Florida I grew up in several decades ago.
We looked at houses in the area (my fondness is for quirky Twenties and Thirties buildings with great woodwork) and found that we could get something in a good neighborhood for less than $150,000 and pay somewhere between $1600 and $3000 a year in property taxes, depending on the neighborhood (higher than we're used to, but the taxes pay for the parks and libraries). There are more modern suburbs and a number of close-in small towns as well.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
