Looking at Potential Retirement Communities (weather, moving, spouse, state)

[jlawrence01]

As I have noted before, I retired about six months ago, My wife should be retiring in the next three years or so. We currently live in the Chicagoland area but we have no relatives in the area and we are pretty tired of the cold and long winters.

My wife and I have traveled all through the US over the past thirty years as corporate auditors and on our frequent travels. About ten years ago, long before we ever planned to retire, we developed a list of 20-30 cities that we thought met our needs. Over the past five years, we have eliminated a number of the locations do to a lack of proximity to health care, high taxes, proximity to family, and cold weather. I might add that we actually added a few locations over the years.

We have it down to eight options that basically fall into three areas. Our plan is for me to start looking at some of the communities in the nest six months or so to find out which of these would be our future home.

I do not want to really discuss locations but the ones that we are looking at are Eastern Tennessee, Central Kentucky, and Delaware. Our original list included locations across the country.

When you go to a city/town to determine whether you want to live there, what sources have you found to be helpful? My initial inclination was to real to the local Realtor's office. However, I really do NOT want to take up a lot of their time until we are down to one or two choices. Also, I do not want to start looking at actual properties until we get it down to one or two locations.

My initial thoughts were to head down to the chamber of commerce, the local diners, and driving through the various neighborhoods.

Any ideas?

[Caladium]

--If you really want to know if a town can "cut the mustard" be sure to go into a few local grocery stores and check out the condiments aisle. Seems like a silly thing to do but I've found you can learn a lot about a town by seeing what people buy. And how much variety there might be. Is it cheap? Gourmet? Mostly vegan? Mostly ethnic? Almost all salsa, and very little else. Lots of variety or just one brand? Old dusty bottles or do the shelves look like they restock every day? Might give you a few clues as to whether you'd feel you fit in there.

(ps--yes I know it should be "cut the muster." Just couldn't resist a bad pun.)

--stop by the local library. See what resources they have, who is hanging out in the library, and maybe even ask the librarian what she thinks of the town. Librarians are wonderful resources and often very observant about the pros and cons of a place.

--stop by any place you're likely to frequent as a resident. This includes senior centers, gyms, college campuses, coffee shops, churches, whatever would be important to you.

--do you have a few favorite stores? Be sure to stop by the local shopping plazas and see if the local version of that store will be ok for you. Walk into the local mall. Is it dead? What are the shoppers like? Have a lot of smokers? Things like that can tell you a lot.

--if you're into walking, running, or doing some sort of outdoor circuit, be sure to take a trial spin on the local paths. There was one town we liked until we tried to go walking there. For us that was a deal breaker.

--if you have pets, are there any local regulations that would be a problem?

[Gandalara]

Yes, a real estate office is the last place I go.
I go to ...
Chamber of Commerce
Visitor's Center
Grocery stores
Coffee shops
Police/Sheriff/Ranger stations
Senior center
Library

[akck]

For one area, I emailed one Realtor and was put on a mailing list of newly listed properties in the area. We didn't visit with the Realtor, but when we were down there, we drove by several properties and the community. As a result of the side trip, we eliminated the outlying smaller communities and dropped the larger community down our list.

I've also gone to several City-Data boards to ask questions about areas. I found them to be an immense help in locating potential neighborhoods to explore. Also, many cities have online sites, including chambers of commerce, that have literature you can download or have mailed to you, prior to your going there.

The main thing I've found is that it's easier to eliminate areas than to decide this location is the right one. It will likely mean we'll be retiring in place for a long while. I have a feeling that we'll likely be making many trips before we decide on a retirement location.

[Lastfire]

I would read the newspapers and especially the letters written by the citizens to the newspaper.

[LookingatFL]

This is what I do:

For a solid month I carry a sheet of paper with me. On this paper I list every place that I go each day. At the end of the month I put each place that I go into a daily/weekly/monthly category. Knowing this information tells me how important it is to have different services around me. For instance, I go to the grocery store daily. I fill my car with gas twice weekly, I go to the dog's vet monthly. Where ever I am moving to, I am going to check to see how many of these items are available and how convenient are they to go to: How many different grocery stores, etc. are in this new city? Do the grocery stores carry the brands, foods, vegetables I am used to buying?

I make an Excel spreadsheet of everything I buy on a regular basis. I include the price. When I am checking out a new location I look for these items and write the price of it in the new location so that I can compare.

I check out grocery stores, veterinarian offices, I look for gas stations, hospitals, medical offices. I look for hardware stores like Home Depot and Lowes, and I look for department stores like Target. I look for malls. I investigate restaurants because those are important to me. You will know what is important for you to investigate once you have your list.

I go to open houses to see what homes in the area look like. If I like a neighborhood I go back several times during the day and night to see what happens in that area at various times. Is it quiet at night? Are a lot of kids playing outside? Are dogs barking?

I basically try to recreate a life I think I will be living once I move there and I see if it is possible.

I also go to the city forums and read about each city. I ask questions. I ask for referrals. I check out apartment complexes and I rent for 1 year to make sure I really do want to live there.

I go on line and I download the current year's state income tax forms. I fill them out based on my current year's information. I compare how much I will be paying in property tax and state income tax to what I am paying now.

I make sure with all these figures that I can afford to live in this new place.

[Caladium]

Originally Posted by akck

I've also gone to several City-Data boards to ask questions about areas. I found them to be an immense help in locating potential neighborhoods to explore.

Some of the city-data forums are helpful. Others, not so much. If you're interested in smaller towns that are away from large cities, the forum aren't always helpful. Also, many of the forums have mostly 20-somethings or college kids. Some of them try to be helpful, but may not know things beyond where to go rollerblading or what bars are open after midnight.I think you may be better off asking questions here. There are a surprising number of people on this forum who have looked at lots of towns, and people who have traveled to, and sometimes lived in, the very community you're interested in.

[ABQ2015]

Originally Posted by Lastfire

I would read the newspapers and especially the letters written by the citizens to the newspaper.

Similar to this suggestion but less time consuming and can be done ahead of my visit, I read the internet news for the local TV station(s). One gets a better idea of what is happening in the community, types of crime that is prevalent, particular concerns of the community, any disgruntlement with local elected officials, day to day weather, etc. And I pay attention to the reader comments on the articles.

I also enjoy reading the C-D forum on my future locale but do find that it is a younger crowd that is active on the forum. Their concerns are more about the need for better jobs in the area and what outdoor activities are available or whether the town is a good place for young families. But I still enjoy reading it.

[volosong]

There is one thing that I've found helpful. Not necessarily that it convinces me that a town/city would be a good place to retire, but more to eliminate a city from consideration. This is not foolproof, and I realize that working in the analysis of satellite imagery most of my professional career, I can tell a lot more about a place by looking at satellite imagery than a lay person would be able to pull out of an image.

I'll pull up a potential town in Wikipedia and also here on C-D. Just read general about a place, especially noting the Koppen classification of the climate, population, and elevation as a first cut. Then I'll put into a Google search window, "perfect_city wonderful_state real estate", (where "perfect_city" is the name of the city in question and "wonderful_state" is its state). Usually I'll just go to the realtor.com web site for that city, re-order the results by "low to high" (cost), eliminate vacant land, ranches, condos, and mobile homes; just leaving single-family stand-alone houses.

Scrolling through the list, I'll display something that looks interesting. If it looks like a nice place that I would consider living in, I'll highlight the address/city and drop that into the search window of google maps. Take a space based view of the property and adjacent neighborhood. I'll then zoom into the street level and look at the house and do a 360 to look around the street where the house is located.

At least for me, this tells me a lot about a city's neighborhoods. It is pretty easy to tell if a neighborhood is well kept up or if it is trashy. Fairly obvious. You can even see the condition of the roads, if they need paving, have nice curbs, or if they are pretty ratty. You can even see expansion cracks in the asphalt. As I said, this will not convince me to move to a particular street of a particular city, but it will surely tell me to stay away. For those places that look nice, I'll put it on my list of places to visit when I do recon trips, (the next one coming up the beginning of December).

I'm in the process of making up my little spreadsheet for my trip in December. On it is the city name, population, any colleges in town, any hospitals in town, yearly climate charts, elevation, and maybe a link to another sheet with some addresses and phone numbers. I'm thinking of printing out a satellite image of a town and surrounding areas that will act as a context map.

Just my little addition. Others have given good hints. Did anyone mention attending church services while visiting a city, (if you are church-going folk)?

[GotHereQuickAsICould]

If I was trying to figure out if an area was for me, I'd go stay at a B&B that had been run by the same innkeepers for awhile. Innkeepers are a fountain of information.

Then I'd check out the things I and my spouse like to go. Walking paths, lakes, restaurants, libraries, bookstores...

What are the church services like? Are the members caring? Are they concerned about building community, doing good work in the world?

I'd look up houses on the real estate web sites. Go drive past.

Would also check out how easy it was to get to a reasonable airport. How about Amtrak? How much of a trek would it be to get see family and friends?

What is the transportation situation for those who don't drive? Are there buses, are reasonable taxis available for grocery shopping etc.

Are there decent medical facilities available?

How much would it cost to live there?